A meat and wool industry leader has little faith the Doha trade liberalisation talks will succeed, and wants the Government to look at individual agreements with important trading partners.
Meat and Wool New Zealand chairman Jeff Grant said if Doha failed - as appeared likely - there needed
to be a greater emphasis on bilateral trade agreements and regionally focused free-trade agreements.
Despite creating expectations, Doha "has instead continued along like a dead cat bouncing".
"Unless the European Union, United States, India, Brazil and the G20 agree, there will be no progress."
Multilateral rounds had been successful for New Zealand, he said, but bilateral and regional agreements had been less successful and were often with countries that offered little for agriculture, he said.
In comparison to a country such as Chile, which had more than 40 free- trade agreements with key markets for their future growth, New Zealand agriculture was missing out on reaching agreements with important trading countries.
"Progress on China is good but we need to be in the door of countries like Japan, Korea, the US and the European Union before too many other countries are successful," Grant said.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
