Australian British Chamber of Commerce - 18 May Newsletter
Australia and Britain will formally launch talks for a free-trade agreement in June, after a two-month delay during which Prime Minister Boris Johnson's FTA dance card has begun to fill up.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has said the bilateral FTA could be wrapped up as soon as the end of this year. British Investment Minister Lord Gerry Grimstone said he was "ambitious" for a speedy conclusion, and "we will try to do these things as fast as we can, and as safely as we can".
But British fears of low-cost Australian agricultural imports remain a stumbling block. On Wednesday last week, MPs from both sides of British politics used a parliamentary debate on post-Brexit agriculture to demand legally binding trade protections for domestic farmers.
Click here for full article from the AFR.
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