Textile union welcomes continued tariff freeze

Media Release: National Distribution Union
Thursday 1 October 2009

Textile union welcomes continuation of tariff freeze

“Textile workers welcome today’s announcement by Tim Groser and Simon Power that the Government will continue the freeze on unilateral tariff reductions by postponing the tariff review for another four years,” says Robert Reid, General Secretary of the National Distribution Union, which represents workers in the textile, clothing and footwear industries.

“This is a victory for common sense, and a final nail in the coffin for the APEC Bogor goals that attempted to force a zero tariff regime on all developed countries in APEC, including NZ, by 2010,” he says.

“The NDU has been lobbying against a unilateral reduction on NZ tariffs to zero for many years.

"The 1996 -99 National Government tried to eliminate all textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) tariffs by 2006.”

“This was stopped by the Alliance Party securing a tariff freeze from 2000 - 2005 as part of its Coalition Agreement with Labour in 1999.”

“Without the Alliance, Labour re-introduced a post 2005 tariff reduction regime that has Textile, Clothing and Footwear tariffs reducing to 10% this year.”

“However Labour and National remained committed to APEC Bogor goals that required all tariffs to be removed in developed countries by 2010.”

“The announcement in April 2008 by then Commerce Minister, Lianne Dalziel, of a freeze on general tariff reductions for two years from July 2009 was the first nail in the APEC coffin. Tim Groser has now firmly closed the lid,” Robert Reid says.

“Given the Thailand, China and ASEAN “free” trade agreements allow NZ to continue with tariffs on TCF imports until 2016, it is sensible that any unilateral elimination of tariffs by NZ does not occur before this date. This will give companies 10 more years from 2006 to adjust to zero tariffs as first proposed by the National Party.”

“However the tariff issue is now secondary to the exchange rate as the main destroyer of manufacturing jobs. As long as there is a hostile monetary policy environment for manufacturing including the high exchange rate we will continue to see contraction and job losses in the manufacturing sector, including the textile sector,” Robert Reid says

ENDS

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