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AFTER a six-year tariff freeze, New Zealand's Government has announced it would gradually drop most tariffs to 5 per cent by July 2008. from their current levels of up to 12.5 per cent.
"Textiles, clothing, footwear and carpet tariffs - now as high as 19 per cent - would fall to 10 per cent by July 2009 and could be zero by 2010," Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton said.
It was hoped Australia would drop its tariffs to similar levels, he said.
"We anticipate that we're going to be a very similar path to them."
"New Zealand wants a relaxation of the "rules of origin" for its products in die Australian market At present, there are no tariffs on goods crossing the Tasman as long as they are 50 per cent made in either Australia or New Zealand.
"But New Zealand manufacturers say this unfairly affects some products.
"We've been trying to get the Australians to agree to a liberalisation of the rules of origin (for New Zealand products) for some time now, and it's true to say that one of the problems has been a level of nervousness in Australian industry that our tariff regimes were out of sync," Mr Sutton said.
"I think the likelihood that we are going to be much more in sync with the tariff path is going to make it easier to get progressive improvements, and that will be good for New Zealand producers and exporters. and possibly for consumers," he commented.
Australia's tariffs are scheduled to drop to 17.5 per cent for apparel and 10 per cent for automotive imports by January 2005.
A joint review of the rules of origin was under way, a spokesman for Australian Trade Minister, Mark Vaile said.
New Zealand's staggered reductions were welcomed by big manufacturers.
Mr Sutton said the changes were "not a job-destroying exercise" and liberalisation would stimulate the whole economy. "We were a basket case in the mid 1980s. We had unemployment of 11 per cent. Practically no growth and we had high tariffs.
"Now we have unemployment below 5 per cent, we have one of the best growth rates in the OECD and we're going well," he said.