Seminar to help Toowoomba businesses come to grips with Australia's FTAs

I will host a seminar in Toowoomba on Tuesday 7 August to help local businesses understand how Australia's Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) can benefit them. 

The free event will begin at 10am at the Burke & Wills Hotel, and I urge all local exporters or potential exporters in the Toowoomba area to come along.

Among the speakers will be John Howard, Chief Financial Officer from Russell Mineral Equipment (RME), who will discuss the company's experience exporting into FTA markets.  

Representatives from Austrade, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), AusIndustry, Efic and Tradestart will also provide practical exporting advice. 

The session will cover Australia's recently signed Peru-Australia FTA and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11), as well as other agreements such as those with China, Japan and Korea.

These FTAs provide significant and ongoing advantages for Australian goods and services in markets that comprise a significant proportion of the global economy.

Tariffs on some mining products exported by RME to China, for example, were previously set at 8 per cent. 

Under ChAFTA, these tariffs have fallen to 1.6 per cent, and will disappear altogether on 1 January 2019.

As our FTAs reduce barriers to trade over time, markets become more accessible for local companies that might not previously have considered exporting.

The Toowoomba economy is well placed to exploit many of these new opportunities.

Austrade and DFAT are running a series of FTAs seminars across all Australian states and territories.  Since March 2015, over 100 seminars have been delivered around Australia.

Attendees can register for the Toowoomba seminar at austrade.gov.au/ftaseminars or find out more information by calling Austrade on 13 28 78 or emailing fta@austrade.gov.au