Trade Minister David Parker is confident trade with the UK will be more open than it has been in the past, under a free trade agreement being negotiated now.
Trade Minister David Parker. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
New Zealand and the UK formally launched negotiations yesterday.
The UK is New Zealand's sixth largest trading partner, with two-way trade totalling nearly six billion dollars last year.
David Parker told Morning Report New Zealand will be better placed than it currently is.
He doesn't expect the final agricultural access details to be thrashed out until the end.
But he said he hopes the negotiation in that regard will be easier than with the EU.
"Particularly in a post-Covid environment it's really important that we diversify our trade links and we're doing our utmost in that regard."
The UK wants access to the CPTPP and it would be naive to think New Zealand wouldn't use that as leverage, Parker said.
"CPTPP is a high quality agreement and all of the parties in it have agreed to fair access to other parties so if the UK wanted to join that agreement in the future they'd have to be willing to agree to similarly high standards, therefore they'd need to achieve that in the UK-New Zealand FTA as well."
British High Commissioner Laura Clarke says she hopes the members of CPTPP would support the UK and what it has to bring to the table.
"The priority is to get really really high quality high ambition bilateral free trade agreements and then when the time is right, and with support of friends and partners, potentially acceding to CPTPP.
She said the UK could help CPTPP "go even more global".
"The priority right now is to do this bilateral free trade agreement and that's about liberalising tariffs on goods, it's about setting new standards on trade and services and doing something really cutting edge and that really speaks to New Zealand's experience as a real innovator in trade policy."
The hope is that exporters in both countries are better off, she said.