“What’s going to happen is that the tastes of this rapidly growing middle-class are going to be such that they’ll be demanding high quality food and services and manufactured goods. I see a real opportunity for Albury Wodonga and the wider region to cash in on premium produce (and) dairy produce,” Mr Emerson told the ABC in a radio interview today.
The recent drop in dairy prices does not appear to have diminished the Trade Minister’s optimism.
The Trade Minister has been engaged of late in more Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The new negotiations are said to be aimed at extending free trade across Asian Pacific regions beyond the current foundation countries of Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, since the TPP was formed in 2006.
However, in an article published today by The Age newspaper, written by Business Day writer Peter Martin, the current negotiations of the TPP were criticised as being “entirely opaque”. This is a view shared by the Australian Productivity Commission, which made a recommendation that the Trade Minister “publish an independent and transparent assessment of future free-trade agreements.” So far, Minister Emerson has not accepted this recommendation.
