AUSTRALIA TARIFF CUTS UNDER THE ANNECY AGREEMENTS

Grey River Argus, 11 October 1949, Page 5

AUSTRALIA TARIFF CUTS UNDER THE ANNECY AGREEMENTS

CANBESRRA, Oct. 10

Commenting on the Annecy trade agreements as they affected Australia the Minister of Post-war Reconstruction, Mi - Dedman, said that new York representative of the Federal Government had been instructed to sign the p?’otocol and that bills implementing the Australian concessions would be introduced into the new Parliament next year. He added that Australia’s trade with Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Greece was sufficient to warrant the competition of the negotiations with each of them. With Nicaragua, Dominica, Haiti, Liberia and Uruguay it had been mutually agreed only to enter into the reciprocal exchange of most-favoured nation treatment. Australia’s trade with the ten countries concerned represented 35 per cent, of the total trade in 194748. The direct concessions of benefit to Australia made by European countries mainly concerned wool, tanning materials, mother of pearl, wheat, barley, apples and pears. Indirect benefits involved " practically the whole range of Australia’s primary products.

In return the Australian concessions involved mainly exemption of primage on cotton yarns, ball and roller bearings, straw, paper and strawboard, timber, cream separators, churns and vats, olives in bulk, sponges, bandsaw steel, rennet, arsenic trioxide, blind rollers and almonds.

The duty on arsenic, trioxide, blind rollers and almonds was also reduced slightly. Some of the goods were already exempted from primage in this year’s Budget as part of the plan to reduce the duties on raw materials required for Australian industries.

Further modification in the levels of American tariff towards the ten countries would help to alleviate the present unbalance between the trade of the United States and other countries, and Australia would share in this major benefits to international trade. The chairman of the customs administration section of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, Mr R. J. Williams, said the removal of primage duty on the articles mentioned would mean a reduction of about 10 per cent., in their landed cost in Australia.