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Australia to review country's FTA with six GCC member nations

01 Jul '06
3 min read

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) announces Australian FTA with Gulf States:

Report Highlights: Australia will investigate a free trade agreement with the six nations of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Total 2005 Australian agric ultural exports to the countries in the GCC reached $804 million. Leading categories included: live animals ($187 million), dairy products ($178 million), cereal products ($168 million), and meat products ($156 million).

Australia will investigate a free trade agreement with the six nations of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Mark Vaile, has announced.

The Gulf Co-operation Council's (GCC) has expressed interest in the negotiation of a GCCwide free trade agreement. This followed a decision by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that the Australian bilateral FTA negotiations with them be incorporated into wider GCC considerations.

"The GCC is an important and growing market for Australia with exports worth $A4.1 billion in 2005," Mr Vaile said.

"The GCC as a whole is a major market for Australian exports, roughly equivalent in size to other key markets such as the United Kingdom, Singapore or Thailand.

"I remain committed to expanding our strong and growing economic and trade relations with the region as a whole and we will look closely at using the good progress we made in the UAE negotiations to advance our export interests through a possible GCC wide agreement," Mr. Vaile said.

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