Try trading with N.Z., Japan first [1]
Thursday, July 1, 1999 - 01:00. Updated on Friday, January 8, 2016 - 13:39.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 3, July 1999.
Free Trade, says Sioeli Matoto, the Deputy Secretary for the Ministry of Labour, Commerce, Trade and Industry, “sounds appealing, and sounds like a very good idea, but it is difficult to put into practice, because every country wants to protect their own interest.”
He said that a good example of the difficulty of getting a free trade agreement to work, was the bilateral Free Trade Agreement that was signed between Tonga and Fiji in 1995. Since it was signed, Tonga had not exported any goods to Fiji under that agreement.
“There was a high hope for Tongan tomatoes and the demand is there, but Fiji has to protect the interest of its own tomato growers. If they allow in Tongan tomatoes, which are better and cheaper, it will kill their tomato industry. This is despite the fact that they are importing tomatoes from New Zealand and Australia.” Sioeli said that quarantine restrictions had been used as a scapegoat to restrict imports.
Sioeli said that the proposed regional Free Trade Area might work if we could be specific on the kind of product that could enter a country. However, Sioeli said that it was probably more beneficial for us to establish free trade agreements with our major trading partners such as New Zealand and Japan, rather than establishing trading agreement with countries that we are trading very little with, such as most of the Forum Island countries, and European countries.