Fiji out of South Pacific trade bill

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 2

Fiji out of South Pacific trade bill

NZPA Wellington Fiji and Nauru will not be included in a bill to be introduced in Parliament ratifying the Sparteca trade agreement with South Pacific countries, according to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday.

This meant that New Zealand would not extend to Fiji concessions granted to other countries unde-r the agreement. Mr Muldoon told a ..ews conference that Fiji would have to continue paying 25 per cent duty on orange juice instead i' the reduced 10. per cent in the agreement. - !

The Prime Minister of Fiji (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) refused to sign the agreement during the South Pacific Forum at Tarawa last week because he asserted New Zealand had gone back on an undertaking to take all the country’s orange juice. But Mr Muldoon said yesterday that New Zealand had made ,'no commitment to take all the orange juice or even all the juice produced under a. new Fiji-New Zealand joint venture. “We said we would give concessions and there are concessions contained in the Sparteca Agreement,” Mr Muldoon said. Nauru refused

to sign the agreement because it did not want to be classified under it as a “big” as opposed to a “little” country. But Mr Muldoon said the exclusion of Nauru from the bill ratifying the agreement would probably not worry Nauru much because the tiny island republic did not send much to New Zealand, apart from phosphate, which was not affected. “It will have some effect on Fiji and that is a very great pity,” he said. But Mr Muldoon said the Government could not see any other way of dealing with it.