PACER Plus

“Trade facilitation is an important role of Customs officers; therefore, they play a central role in the successful implementation of PACER Plus,” Acting OCO Head of Secretariat, Irma Daphney Stone said.

“Under the PACER Plus Readiness Package, OCO in collaboration with the Centre for Customs and Excise Studies at Charles Sturt University (CCES) have been training Customs officers on the Rules of Origin (RoO) of PACER Plus and we recently completed a refresher training in anticipation of the agreement coming into effect.”

On Wednesday, New Zealand became the first country to ratify the PACER Plus agreement, which Australia and nine Pacific Island countries have signed.

Cleo Paskal, of the global think tank Chatham House, said enforced free trade will undermine customary land holding and social capital systems in the Pacific.

She said once those economies are weakened, China will pick up the pieces.

New Zealand with Australia has been strongly promoting the PACER Plus trade over the past 10 years and later last year it got the required backing, though it is still to be ratified.

But Dr Cleo Paskal of the global think tank Chatham House said there was very little in PACER Plue for the island nations.

She said Australia and New Zealand had bullied Pacific countries into a deal that offers very little and include no development for them.

Papua New Guinea and Fij have refused to join the Australia and New Zealand-led agreement, which has been signed by most other Pacific nations.

Wadan Narsey, a Fijian economist at Australia's Swinburne University, said the absence of Fiji and PNG was a setback but he said there were still advantages.

He said the first of these was that something was better than nothing.

Growing the export potential for Pacific businesses was a key issue for the Private Sector Dialogue at last week's leaders forum in Apia.

The deal was signed in June, but three of the region's largest countries - Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu - refused to join, saying it would harm their economies and was imbalanced towards Australia and New Zealand.

The negotiator, Tessa Te Mata, said PACER Plus was about building on existing regional trade agreements and adding to the dynamism, economic integration and trade in the region.

She said the countries that refused to join needed to work out how PACER Plus would work for them and what they wanted from it.

The CTU secretary Sam Huggard presented evidence to New Zealand Parliament's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee.

RNZI reports Mr Huggard examined the progress on the PACER-Plus trade agreement.

He said taxes on goods from Australia and New Zealand support health, education and social services, for which there are few alternatives.

"One of those would be a consumer tax like a GST or a VAT, and in the end those taxes hit the poor much stronger than they hit people who are well-off."

The CTU secretary Sam Huggard presented evidence to New Zealand Parliament's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee.

Mr Huggard examined the progress on the PACER-Plus trade agreement.

He said taxes on goods from Australia and New Zealand support health, education and social services, for which there are few alternatives.

"One of those would be a consumer tax like a GST or a VAT, and in the end those taxes hit the poor much stronger than they hit people who are well-off."

The PTI Network has congratulated the Pacific countries who signed the agreement earlier this month in Tonga.

Michael Greenslade, Trade & Investment Commissioner and CEO PTI New Zealand, said it’s an important agreement that will strengthen Pacific relations.

“New Zealand and Australian markets are important for the Pacific Islands, and closer trade and economic relations will have an important role in increasing collective prosperity.  The key objective of PACER Plus is to encourage economic development and promote business growth across the Pacific.”

Nine countries from around the region, as well as Australia and New Zealand, are in Tonga to sign the PACER Plus agreement, wrapping up nearly a decade of negotiations.

The deal has been polarising with critics saying it threatens the interests of island countries, and was unbalanced towards the interests of Australia and New Zealand.

But proponents tout it as a new kind of deal that links development to trade.

Todd McClay said this would give funding to boost exports from Pacific countries, and create rules to make it easier for the region's countries to trade.