Free Trade Agreements

India:

As has been reported there has been a signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Australia and India. Currently the agreement will be going through the requirements of each of the applicable governments.

At this stage we have not been advised as to the detail in the agreement and what will be covered and when it will be covered.

As soon as we have further detail we will pass this one however this is a very exciting new agreement that has been in discussions for in excess of 10 years.

United Kingdom:

Australia and the UK have also signed a Free Trade Agreement in December 2021 which is in the same process as the above Indian agreement in that it is now going through the full scrutiny of government before being enacted.

Initial indications are this agreement will come into force later in 2022 however the exact date is still to be finalised.

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP):

This multilateral agreement is a 15 country agreement, including Australia, covering the Indo-Pacific region. The agreement covers a range of goods and services and may assist companies that supply or manufacture across a number of these countries.

Individually Australia has FTA’s with all these countries however the advantage of such a wide agreement is the additional inputs that can be included when determining if a reduced duty rate is available for your goods.

The Federal budget outlined that the Government expects revenue from import duties to drop significantly over the next 4 years which will be due to the implementation of FTA’s. Notwithstanding this we expect compliance activities to increase in relation to FTA’s so that people aren’t incorrectly claiming the reduced rates.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact one of our team to further explain these issues.