Regional Economic Integration
Australia’s Participation in Regional Economic Integration Regional economic integration, also known as regionalism, is the process whereby countries in a geographic region cooperate to reduce or eliminate barriers to the international flow of products, people, or capital (Wild & Wild, 2014). A group of nations in a geographic region undergoing economic integration is called a regional trading bloc (Wild & Wild, 2014). In terms of Australia’s regional economic integration, the country is involved in two different organizations. Australia is involved in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Closer Economic Relations Agreement (CER Agreement)—also known as the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic
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By joining the APEC, Australia was able to create trade relations with multiple countries. Since Australia was a founding member of the APEC, it has been able to grow the organization to its current status. As stated in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website (2015), “Australia has helped advance APEC’s core work streams of regional economic integration, structural reform and targeted capacity building through its involvement across more than 30 APEC forums.” Also, by joining the APEC, Australia was able to form free trade agreements (FTA) with certain countries such as New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, and the United States (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2015). Since 1922, Australia had an unofficial agreement to trade with neighboring country New Zealand. It wasn’t until 1966 that the free trade treaty between New Zealand and Australia was fully enforced, creating the New Zealand Australia Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 1983 the Closer Economics Relations Agreement was fully created making the trade between Australia and New Zealand complete (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
After Sir John McEwen, the former Minister for Trade, signed the Australia-Japan Commerce Agreement in 1957, the trading aspect between the two nations has developed ...
Shadowing World War II, there was an amplified fear of communism in Australia. The influence of the threat of Communism in Australian local politics from 1945 to the 1950’s was very strong as you can see through Robert Menzies, the Petrov Affair, The fear of Ussr spies, the royal commission and the Alp split show relevant threats to the Australian Domestic politics by saying they are spies, traitors and liars.
The least advanced level is the Free Trade Area. The features of this level is that reduced tariff barriers between signatories, which at times are abandoned altogether and there is free movement of labour and capital and the non-member countries have an independent set of tariffs against member countries. The second level of economic integration is the Customs Union. This is a Free Trade Agreement plus a common external tariff. Member countries agree to reduce tariff barriers among themselves and they have in common, this is referred to as tax harmonisation.
What is defined as a global citizen? They’re considered to be people or countries who understand their obligations at a global level. Over the past 50 years the countries of the world have become increasingly interconnected. With this, there has been an increasing awareness that only global cooperation can solve problems including poverty and epidemics, stop wars, and reverse environmental degradation and climate change. As the globe battles with these underlying problems, Australia’s partake, even the smallest amount, is fundamentally important, especially with its stance currently as being the 15th richest country in the world. However, in recent years Australia hasn’t demonstrated, in a few of these global issues, the true values and morals of being a good global citizen.
Mexico is the WTО members with Free Trade Agreements (Mexico country brief, 2012). Mexico signed a free trade agreement with 44 countries and regions in the world, and occupies the 40% of the total trade volume in the Americas (Mexico country brief, 2013). Import advantage: if the foreign companies do business in Mexico, they can be imported from third countries products with very low interest rates (Mexico country brief, 2013).
In 1984, the motive of NAFTA originally started with President Ronald Reagan, who campaigned on the North American common market and Congress had passed the Trade and Tariff Act. Negotiations were first disputed in 1988 between U.S. and Canada which started the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Later Canada requested a trilateral agreement, which led to the NAFTA.
Free trade agreements have proved to be an effective tool for exporters to penetrate foreign markets; the reductions of trade barriers facilitate the exporting process and make it cheaper for producers to export goods and services to trading partners. The US currently has twelve Free Trade Agreements in place with Australia, Bahrain, Chile, DR-CAFTA, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, NAFTA, Oman, Peru, and Singapore, that accounts for 43% of total exports and an annual growth of 11.1% since the year 2000. On the other hand Colombia has nine Free Trade Agreements: Mexico, El Salvador-Guatemala-Honduras, CARCOM, CAN, MERCOSUR, Chile, Canada, Cuba, EFTA.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect January 1, 1994. It is a trade agreement between all three of countries of North America, which are The United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, the Mexican President, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and former U.S. President George H. Bush spearheaded the agreement. Relationships between the countries were already on good terms, especially between The United States and Canada. Five years before NAFTA went into effect they signed the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that eliminated all tariffs. It was only time before a more integrated agreement was put into effect for all of North America. The geographic location and the already established trade of goods and services made NAFTA a logical decision.
Over the past five years the Australian economy has gone through many changes experiencing both the peaks and troughs associated with business cycle.
One of the main factors that caused globalisation in Australia was a reduction in protection, the act of National trade barriers being removed. A reduction in protection of international trade is done by governments who work together to develop agreements with each other to reduce trade barriers and allow tariffs on imported goods to be reduced. Australian governments have been involved with countries such as Singapore and Malaysia in an effort to help reduce the tariffs and quotas on imported goods, resulting in free trade agreements between other countries. For example, when National trade barriers are removed, opportunities are opened up to Australian business to import goods at a cheaper price and then export other goods to new markets in other countries. Evidence of this was recently reported on the ABC news program, the reporter quoted that ‘our government should not sign any free trade agreements with Japan, until the tariffs on Australian beef and dairy products are reduced.’ This news report showed local Australian farmers who are trying to convince our Prime Minist...
Australia has had one of the most outstanding economies of the world in recent years - competitive, open and vibrant. The nation’s high economic performance stems from effective economic management and ongoing structural reform. Australia has a competitive and dynamic private sector and a skilled, flexible workforce. It also has a comprehensive economic policy framework in place. The economy is globally competitive and remains an attractive destination for investment. Australia has a sound, stable and modern institutional structure that provides certainty to businesses. For long time, Australia is a stable democratic country with strong growth, low inflation and low interest rate.(Ning)
The United States and New Zealand established close ties in 1942, when the U.S. provided security for New Zealand during World War II, and have remained close ever since. However, in 1984, the Labour party came into power in New Zealand, with intentions to bar nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships from New Zealand ports. Implementation of this anti-nuclear policy was incompatible with U.S. policy and disrupted the alliance under the Australian, New Zealand, and United States (ANZUS) security treaty of 1951. After unsuccessful attempts to remedy the issue, the United States suspended its ANZUS security obligation to New Zealand in 1986.
The political force moved away from the painstakingly and time-consuming technique of multilateral tariff negotiations to smaller regional and bilateral provisions - the Regional Trade Agreement. In these arrangements; members accord preferential treatment , basically agreeing to liberalize the exchange of goods and services amongst each another giving regard to certain trade barriers. RTA is not the first-hand way of trade liberalization though. Initially, when multilateral trade discussions used to happen, two-sided and multiparty FTA”s filled the vacuum. There were restrictions from stringent and premeditated trade arrangements earlier, thus a lot of states are now moving towards freer trade for their own benefits.
CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, or commonly known as the Dominican RepublicCentral America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), is a free trade agreement. In international trade, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries are not hindered by government imposed tariffs (taxes on imports) or non-tariffs (Wikipedia, 2007).
APEC consists of 21 nations and other political units that border the Pacific Ocean. Economic and political alliances have been formed among the countries of the Pacific Rim. APEC's aims include reducing trade barriers among its members and to further trade and investment in the region. Its principles are to support economic growth and development of the region and world economic liberalization, to reduce barriers of the trade of goods, services and investment, and to facilitate economic, technical and investment cooperation among its member economies. (http://www.apec2002.org.mx/sevents)