Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Abetz for his question and his interest in this very important topic. I'm pleased to inform the Senate that later today Australia and the United Kingdom will officially commence negotiations towards a free trade agreement between our two countries. This is a great step forward in terms of creating new opportunities that will lead to new and further job opportunities for Australians. The UK is already our seventh largest trading partner, and our total two-way trade is worth more than $30 billion a year.

But we can do much more than that. We are seeking an ambitious and comprehensive free trade agreement that secures commercially meaningful market access for our farmers and businesses and across the services sectors as well as for goods, and further strengthens our two-way investment flows.

The UK is Australia's third-largest services trading partner. In 2019, our two-way services trade was worth in excess of $15 billion. We want to make sure that, across financial services, professional services, telecommunications, fintech and emerging sectors, we enhance and strengthen those opportunities. The UK is already our second-largest source of foreign investment in Australia, with foreign direct investment valued at $127 billion in 2019. We see exciting investments, such as by British based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in its $200 million manufacturing facility in North Ryde in Sydney. We know that, when the UK entered the European Economic Community in 1973, our agriculture exports suffered the worst. At that stage, the UK was our third-largest goods trading partner; it is now our 12th. Tariffs on agricultural products account for 67 per cent of all tariffs the UK applies to Australian exports. We seek to eliminate as many of these as possible to create new opportunities for our farmers and our businesses to grow more jobs through the relationship. (Time expired)