The following are Australia’s free trade agreements (listed with the entry-into-force date). -Australia-New Zealand (ANZCERTA or CER) – 1 January 1983 -Singapore-Australia (SAFTA) – 28 July 2003 -Australia-United States (AUSFTA) – 1 January 2005 -Thailand-Australia (TAFTA) – 1 January 2005 -Australia-Chile (ACl-FTA) – 6 March 2009 -ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand (AANZFTA) – 1 January 2010 for eight countries: Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. For Thailand: 12 March 2010. For Laos: 1 January 2011. For Cambodia: 4 January 2011. For Indonesia: 10 January 2012 -Malaysia-Australia (MAFTA) – 1 January 2013 -Korea-Australia (KAFTA) – 12 December 2014 -Japan-Australia (JAEPA) – 15 January 2015 -China-Australia (ChAFTA) – 20 December 2015 -Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – 30 December 2018 -Australia-Hong Kong (A-HKFTA) – 17 January 2020 -Peru-Australia (PAFTA) — 11 February 2020 -Indonesia- Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) – 5 July 2020 (Source: DFAT)
There are 2 aspects to Australia's industrialisation:
(a) replacement of imports (b) adding value to our raw exports for export
RE: (a) Successive Governments have painted Australia into a corner with respect to Aussie manufacturing to replace imports because FTA's (see above list) allow manufacturers in low labour cost jurisdictions free access to our consumer markets.
Historically, the growth of these FTAs listed above paralleled the demise of our domestic manufacturing. eg: Korea, Japan & Thailand FTAs spelt the end of our car manufacturing; Thailand with low input labour costs & Japan & Korea with automation & economy of scale.
RE: (b) We have a competitive edge on our FTA partners above in Iron Ore, Met & Thermal coals, LNG and farm products as evidenced by our exports of these commodities. IMO, in order to industrialise we have to use this competitive edge by downstream processing/manufacturing of these commodities particuluarly where automation and high-tech minimise local labour content.
Our best option to manufacture for export is to form Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
to overcome our relatively high manufacturing inputs such as labour , excessive red tape etc
IMO, we either have to cancel our FTAs with countries that have lower manufacturing inputs if we want to replace imports with local manufacture.
And on a political level, we have to ask who are the winners and who are the losers in Aus from each individual FTA and how the resulting imbalance can be rectified?
