Hi all,
Since this week we have to focus on the Employment Relations
in East Asia (particularly in Japan and South Korea), I wanted to address in
this weeks post the International Employment Relations between Australia and
both of these countries.
As it was broadcasted on the news, Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott had a very important first trip overseas to Japan, South Korea and
China earlier this year (in April to be exact). In crossing these 3 countries
in a week, he visited three of the Australian largest trading partners and
export markets with a combined population of 1.5 billion and a combined GDP of
$15 trillion, a collective force responsible for almost a fifth of the worlds
trade.
He sealed Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with South Korea and
finalized another with Japan and move into last phase of negotiations with
China after 9 years all of this despite the risky comments that Prime Minister
Abbott made saying that ‘Japan was Australia’s best friend in Asia’ which
analysts said could create anger among the Chinese government.
This blog aimed to emphasize of the efforts of the
Australian government in building strategic economic alliances with these three
countries but at the same to be critical with the fact that Australian
businesses are not benefiting as much as ‘they could’ from these Free Trade
Agreements.
As bellows graph sourced from HSBC shows, we can see that due to
legal complexities, perception of unfairness and a lack of understanding are
contributing to far too few Australian companies acting to unlock the financial
and export benefits offered by bilateral free trade agreements.
Source:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/freetrade-agreement-benefits-going-to-waste/story-e6frg8zx-1227029887641?nk=ed1073ff4457dee2e1c33128ef0cb26e
Hi Alexander, I thought this was a great article that outlined a problem that I may have never come across unless someone pointed it out to me. I have never read much in to how well countries use and benefit from their free trade agreements.
ReplyDeleteI found this Australian Government website: http://www.dfat.gov.au/fta/
It outlines all of Australia's current free trade agreements throughout the world and the latest news on them as well, very interesting!
Thanks,
Jonathan :)