By Matt Walsh
CANBERRA, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Australia is a step closer to signing a landmark free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU), the nation's Trade Minister said on Friday, with formal negotiations expected to begin in the second half of 2017.
Steven Ciobo, Australia's Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that his office had recently completed a "scoping study" which would lay the groundwork for formal talks with EU leaders.
"The EU is our second-largest trading partner, it's worth roughly 95.6 billion Australian dollars (72.1 billion U.S. dollars) and putting this FTA in place will be crucial driver of the Australian economy into the future, and of generating more jobs in Australia," Ciobo said on Friday.
"One example I often make reference to is the fact that Australia imports more agricultural products from Europe, us with a population of 23 or 24 million, than the Europeans do from Australia with their population.
"I'm very confident that we've got a great starting point for comprehensive negotiations."
The Trade Minister admitted the process up until this point had been slow, as the EU was made up by a number of countries which had to approve the measures.
"The Europeans of course need to do the same thing through their system, and their system can sometimes take a little longer than the Australian system, and that's understandable given the number of countries involved," he said.
Despite that, the federal opposition Labor Party has lamented the slow process; Labor's trade spokesperson Jason Clare the government was "way behind schedule" on its EU negotiations.
"It's good, it's about time, but like a lot of things that the Government's doing in trade, it's way behind schedule," Clare told the ABC.
"They promised that they'd be negotiating this deal with Europe by now and they still haven't started."
Regardless of the criticism, Clare admitted the opposition did support both the bilateral and multilateral free trade deals being pursued by the government, especially the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
"We need to make sure that Australia is part of it, and that the Turnbull government signs Australia up to a good agreement that creates jobs for Australian workers."
Earlier, Australia's Prime Minister reiterated the need for Australia to keep up with an ever-globalizing world; he told a conference in Sydney overnight that remaining competitive, not only in terms of free trade, but in terms of attracting business to Australia, was of paramount importance to his government.
"If we don't act now, we will be left behind, not only will we miss out on investment, Australian jobs will go offshore, our living standards will stagnate," Turnbull said overnight.
"We cannot pretend that Australia will be able to compete successfully for capital, investment and jobs, if the cost of doing business here is so much higher than in comparable countries."
Ciobo has told the ABC that he expects formal negotiations with the European Union to begin in the second half of 2017, but admitted there was no timeline for when a deal would be officially struck.
