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Manila Bulletin devider World devider EU, Australia make 'progress' toward free trade deal: French minister

EU, Australia make 'progress' toward free trade deal: French minister

Published Oct 27, 2023 01:42 pm

TOKYO, Japan - The European Union and Australia have made "progress" towards a free trade deal, France's trade minister said Friday, ahead of a Group of 7 trade meeting.

"At the current stage of discussions, we have made a number of very positive advances," Olivier Becht told reporters on a visit to Tokyo, adding that he was "not ruling out" the possibility of reaching a technical agreement at the meeting this weekend.

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France's Minister for Foreign Trade Olivier Becht arrives for a cabinet meeting (Conseil des Ministres) at the Elysee Palace in Paris on July 21, 2023. (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP)

The minister is due to take part in the talks in Osaka, which will also be attended by Australian trade minister Don Farrell and other trade ministers from the group.

The EU and Australia have been negotiating for several years over a free trade deal and a number of sticking points remain, including on agricultural products and the protected designation of origin in Europe.

In July, the two parties failed to reach an agreement during talks in Brussels, with Australia saying it had not been guaranteed "significant" access to the European market for its agricultural products.

"We need to ensure that the quotas allocated to Australia for duty-free access to the European and French markets are reasonable in relation to what the market itself can absorb," Becht said Friday.

France is pushing for a deal with Australia to access critical minerals and advance the "industrial interests" of European companies in the country, he added.

Such an agreement would enable the EU to reduce its dependence on imports from Russia and China, while allowing Australia to reduce its reliance on the Chinese market for its agricultural and mining exports.

The G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting will take place on Saturday and Sunday with several items on the agenda, including the reform of the World Trade Organization, the security of supply chains and limiting "economic coercion" by one state against another -- an indirect reference to China.

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