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Tim Groser: former Trade Minister 'encouraged' by Government outlining future trade plan · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our Wide Ranger podcasts now on iHeartRadio Heller
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: do for see Alan Right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the National Party has announced it will try and
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  Speaker 2: get a free trade deal with another seven international markets
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  Speaker 2: in the next five years. Brazil, Nigeria, Uruguay, Bangladesh, Norway
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  Speaker 2: and Switzerland are all on the wish list. Tim Grosser
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  Speaker 2: is a former trade minister and with us. Now, hey Tim, hi,
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  Speaker 2: can this be done?
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  Speaker 3: Look? They put forward an ambitious agenda. I'm very encouraged
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  Speaker 3: by it. We'll find out, you know, how many of
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  Speaker 3: these higher fruit we picked the lower fruit first, of course,
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  Speaker 3: can be harvested in the next five or six years.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, and let's just face the banks. If
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  Speaker 3: you don't aim high, you'll achieve low. So it's possible
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  Speaker 3: and even if they fall short, it's certainly going to
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  Speaker 3: set the direction of travel.
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  Speaker 2: Why these countries, Well.
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  Speaker 3: I think it goes down to my metaphor, the conventional
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  Speaker 3: metaphor of picking the the easier hanging proved at the
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  Speaker 3: bottom of the tree. That's what we've done. So we've
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  Speaker 3: now got I think seventeen or eighteen of these agreements
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  Speaker 3: in place. They've got different names, but they're really best
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  Speaker 3: considered as a single concept of FDAs or free trade areas,
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  Speaker 3: and that covers slightly over seventy percent of our total exports,
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  Speaker 3: so we're not just trying to mop up that remaining
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  Speaker 3: thirty percent or as much of it as we can.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's the reason why these countries are self selected,
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  Speaker 3: because I mean the first one we picked off was Australia,
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  Speaker 3: and as a junior official I was deeply involved in
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  Speaker 3: that from seventy nine through to eighty two eighty three.
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  Speaker 3: And then we got multilateral reform on agriculture in the
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  Speaker 3: Uruguay around as a cheap negotiator in that, and then
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  Speaker 3: Helen Clark took that vital step forward and getting the
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  Speaker 3: FTA with China, which is now, of course our largest
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  Speaker 3: trading partner. So we worked through on a perfectly logical
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  Speaker 3: sequence of our most important markets and now we're getting
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  Speaker 3: down to second tier markets.
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  Speaker 2: Been good to talk to you. Thank you for your time.
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  Speaker 2: Tim Gross, a former Trade minister.
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