UK signs free trade agreement with New Zealand | Abroad

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern made the deal more concrete on Wednesday local time in a video call, Britain’s Department of Foreign Trade said in a press release. “It is an excellent free trade agreement for the United Kingdom, which cements our longstanding friendship with New Zealand and strengthens our relations in the Indo-Pacific region,” Johnson said in a press release.

The UK hopes that the FTA will also help it join the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (CPTPP). “A free trade area of ​​11 countries, with a GDP of $8.4 trillion in 2020,” says the government. The CPTPP, signed by New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan, among others, is the most important free trade agreement in the region. The UK formally applied to join in February.

Since the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, London has signed free trade agreements with the European Union, Japan and Australia. It has already done so with European countries that are not part of the European Union, such as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

The British government said the deal with New Zealand would “reduce paperwork for companies, eliminate tariffs on British exports and create new opportunities for technology and services companies”. Last year, according to the British government, trade with New Zealand amounted to 2.3 billion pounds (about 2.73 billion euros).

The Social Democratic opposition, on the other hand, says the deal will only benefit “the huge companies that power New Zealand’s meat and dairy farms”. The opposition said British farmers were the victims.