Sparteca
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
The rules of
“I AM not partial to participating in official visits surrounded in pomp and ceremony, as I am a firm believer in getting down to the job at hand,” Filipe
Bole, Fiji’s deputy prime minister and
minister for foreign affairs and external trade, told business leaders at a Sydney lunch on October 20. And he wasn’t
joking.
In the next 20 minutes he called a spade a spade in arguing for bilateral trade agreements between Fiji and its traditional trading partners, such as Australia. The point was being approached, he said, when Fiji had to turn its attention towards direct agreements in addition to the multilateral arrangements such as SPARTECA (South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement). Times had changed.
Mr Bole was making his first official visit to Australia in his ministerial capacity. He
got right down to the job at hand by making it clear that for several years Fiji had been concerned by the pattern of trade between Fiji and Australia and that something had to be done to correct the imblance.
On Australia’s own Bureau of Statistics figures, he said, Fiji’s exports to Australia for the year to June 1993 increased 28.7 per cent but Australia’s exports to Fiji increased 33.5 per cent. The result was that Fiji now had a trade deficit with Australia of nearly As2oo million. That trend, he said, Fiji sought to reverse.
He said that over the past 12 months, Fiji and Australian governments had been having discussions on two-way trade in preparation for his visit but he couldn’t help wondering whether, “given Australia’s preoccupation with rugby league, the now famous Canberra Raiders’ star player, (Fijian) Noa Nadruku, might have been able to achieve far more in Canberra than either myself, our ambassador or the army of public servants”.
It was said with easy good humour but in the detailed Canberra talks that followed, Mr Bole served notice that changing times and circumstances, and Fiji’s present level of economic development, made Fiji’s needs different to many other Forum countries and that there had to be a harder edge to its trade dealings with Australia.
Fiji recognised that “protectionism was a thing of the past”, that it had to position itself in the open and free market world of the future and it and Australia had to ensure that they continued to benefit from the two way trade painstakingly built up over recent years. But “greater priority” had to be given to adjustments and revisions to existing trade agreements and probably to establishment of
additional ones. In other words, a review of Australia’s trade with the islands was needed urgently.
Australia’s trade relations with the South Pacific are handled mainly through the framework of SPARTECA which, among other advantages, offers preferential ac cess to a range of goods. But the way Fiji sees it, the South Pacific states, if you omit Papua New Guinea with its mining economy, exported to Australia goods worth only $l5l million in 1991/92, two thirds of which were from Fiji. Yet the islands bought goods from Australia worth $515 million.
Fiji says it can export far more clothing, textiles and footwear but is prevented from doing so by SPARTECA rules it sees as being far too restrictive. It says that the
advantages of SPARTECA in its present state are “question able”, and a review might indicate what other ways there are available to help build island economies. And there has to be a genuine effort to understand and meet island interests.
There can be no doubt that Filipe Bole’s visit was a watershed in trade relations which will have advantages for all Forum countries. It’s important not because of the call for a review of SPARTECA, particularly of the rules of origin under which goods are admitted free, for that call is not new.
A lot of discussion has already taken place about the need to revise it, most recently at the joint meeting of Fiji-Australia and Australia-Fiji business councils in Nadi, Fiji, in June.
That SPARTECA which as Filipe Bole told the Sydney meeting, was originally conceived in 1981 to be a non reciprocal agreement under which Australia and New Zealand helped the islands is admirable in principle, there is no doubt. But the islands say the agreement is now defeating some of its own purposes.
What is new is the islands’ feeling of urgency; the island view that they are not keeping abreast of the swift developments and changes occurring in world trade, and that they are being bogged down by bureaucratic delays as officials seek to interpret or “clarify” this or that intention of the SPARTECA rules. In the end, the interpretation doesn’t always favour the islands.
Thus, they say, there must be more specific, hand-tailored agreements to reflect the new regional awareness and needs. • Bill McCabe is Senior Commissioner of the South Pacific Trade Commission, Sydney an arm of the South Pacific Forum. □