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New Zealand, Australian leaders pledge closer trade, science cooperation

Xinhua, February 17, 2017 Adjust font size:

The leaders of New Zealand and Australia have agreed to work together to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact after the United States' withdrawal under President Donald Trump.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull issued a joint communiqué Friday after talks in New Zealand's South Island mountain resort of Queenstown.

The statement said the two leaders had agreed to continue to push for open markets and regional economic integration, "noting, with concern, growing anti-globalisation sentiment in many parts of the world."

The TPP, signed by 12 nations in Auckland last year, was a "key promoter of regional economic integration and a driver of economic growth, competition, innovation and productivity," it said.

"In light of the intention of the United States not to ratify TPP, the two Prime Ministers agreed that Australia and New Zealand would work together to engage with other TPP partners on the way forward, over the coming months."

The two leaders also recognized that their countries had broad areas of common interests in responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by Brexit.

Both countries remained strongly committed to advancing the negotiations of the 16-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which include 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, as well as China, India, Japan and South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

"The Prime Ministers underscored the need, following recent global events, for RCEP to be a modern, comprehensive, high quality agreement with commercially meaningful outcomes, in order to provide a strong boost to global economic confidence," it said.

They also reaffirmed their commitment to conclude the 16-nation Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus (PACER Plus) trade and development agreement as soon as possible and to value the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a global forum for establishing rules, settling disputes and resolving issues that can only be addressed multilaterally.

The meeting attended by ministers from both sides included the signing of an agreement to better integrate Australia and New Zealand's science, research and innovation agendas by enabling collaboration between researchers and innovative companies.

They also agreed that the New Zealand and Australian governments would be partners in the world's first trial of Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) over two years.

SBAS was expected to improve air navigation, smartphone-based services, asset management and precision agriculture, and to be needed for the deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles, New Zealand Transport Minister Simon Bridges said in a statement.

"While current GPS (global positioning systems) locations are accurate to within 5 to 10 meters, the SBAS test-bed could improve positioning to within as little as 10 centimeters. This means that a vehicle will recognize the road it is travelling on, but also which lane it is in, and its distance from surrounding objects," said Bridges. Endit