Aust agrees to SPARTECA changes

AUSTRALIA has agreed to changes to the SPARTECA (South Pacific Re gional Trade and Economic Co

operation Agreement) but Fiji Prime

Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is not sure whether these changes will favour Fiji.

At a Press conference during the Forum meeting, Rabuka said Australia had agreed to accept items under the agreement as part of the 50 per cent local content rule provided that half of the contents used to make these items are derived from Australia alone.

Explaining this, a senior official said this new change was similar to the

derogation extended to Fiji by the

European Union. This means that if

local manufacturers comply with the new changes, they will have to make

cheap and low quality goods and

compete with the Asian products ex ported to the Australian market.

However, local manufacturers have argued that they cannot compete with products from Asia because of cheap labour costs there. Manufacturers have said that they can compete in Australia and New Zealand, but this will mean direct competition with Australian and New Zealand manufacturers some thing that the trans-Tasman neighbours do not want.

Rabuka also said at the Forum that the Australian government had agreed

to negotiate with Fiji to include more items which can be classified under the 50 per cent local content rule. The South Pacific Regional Trade and

Economic Co-operation Agreement

(SPARTECA) has been a bone of contention between Fiji and Australia and New Zealand in recent years.

However, Rabuka told journalists that he was not sure whether the changes were in favour of Fiji manufac turers. “I don’t know whether it has really changed in favour of Fiji manu facturers. I think it’s a mutually ben eficial development rather than change,” he said. □