New Zealand and European Union Free Trade w/ Haipeng Zhang: 19 July, 2023

Last week Chris Hipkins was in Brussels to sign a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. The much-anticipated deal took years of negotiations with the agreement set to lead to billions of dollars in export savings. 

As the agreement comes into place, more than ninety-one per cent of tariffs will be removed from New Zealand goods, and ninety-seven per cent of New Zealand’s current exports will be duty-free. 

There will be an immediate tariff removal on the export of New Zealand goods such as kiwifruit, wine, onions, apples, mānuka honey and manufactured goods, as well as for almost all fish and seafood, and other horticultural products. 

To talk more about the economic implications of this free trade agreement, Andre Fa’aoso spoke to Doctor Haipeng Zhang, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Auckland