free trade question (1 Viewer)

[zelda]

Why and how does the Australian government pursue policies to promote free trade?
What are the potential benefits to australia from free trade?

im not really sure how to approach these questions...can anyone give me some directions on how to answer these?

thanks!

 

[grimreaper]

Well basically Australia promotes free trade for the same reasons youve been learning from the beginning - to encourage efficient use of resources, promote innovation, get rid of inefficient industries, etc. There's also the fact that most of Australia's big good exports are part of the primary sector ie agriculture and mining. Most of the countries we export a lot too (eg usa and Japan) have high protection on agriculture, so we want them to open up their markets.

Australia does this by supporting global trade agreements, such as the WTO, entering regional agreements (eg APEC) and entering bilateral agreements (eg CERTA). You may want to include the recent agreement with the US, but apparently it wasnt too successful in reducing agricultural protection so I dunno.

 

[Pandorash]

I recommend this url:

http://hsc.csu.edu.au/economics/global_economy/tut7/Tutorial7.html

 

[zelda]

o0o thanks grimreaper and pandorash...i think i know what to write about now
but if theres anymore replies that would cool