History
The Economy of New Zealand is a market economy which is greatly dependent on international trade, mainly with Australia, the United States of America, China and Japan. It is strongly dependent on tourism and agricultural exports, and has only small manufacturing and high-tech components. Economic free-market reforms of the last decades have removed many barriers to foreign investment, and the World Bank has praised New Zealand as being the most business-friendly country in the world (citation needed).
Regional and bilateral free trade agreements have become an important part of New Zealand's international trade policy. New Zealand has used free trade agreements also known as closer economic partnerships to liberalise trade between economies. A Closer Economic Partnership Agreement with Thailand was negotiated in 2004 and implemented in 2005. Negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with Chile, Brunei and Singapore known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership were concluded in 2005. Negotiations for further agreements with Malaysia were undertaken in 2006, but failed to reach a conclusion. The historic FTA with China was signed in Beijing in April 2008.
On 27 February 2009 New Zealand and its close partner Australia signed a Free Trade Agreement with the ASEAN regional block of 10 countries it is estimated that an FTA with ASEAN would boost aggregate GDP across the 12 countries by more than US$48 billion over the period 2000-2020 with an additional US$3.4 billion to New Zealand alone.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Free Trade Agreements
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