Trade Minister Todd McClay in Italy for G7 meeting

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Todd McClay is in Italy for the G7 trade talks. (File photo)
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver

Trade Minister Todd McClay is in Italy this week for New Zealand’s first-ever G7 meeting.

Two-way trade with Italy was valued at NZ$2.22 billion last year, and McClay told Morning Report it was important to be at the G7 meeting of trade ministers, speaking for New Zealand.

The G7 is a group of the world’s wealthiest nations, consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States, with the European Union as a non-enumerated member.

It was the first time New Zealand had been invited to attend, and was a “great privilege”, McClay said.

The invite came after a World Trade Organization meeting earlier this year, where McClay was one of the vice chairs.

“New Zealand was responsible for negotiating the e-commerce part and it was probably the only agreement that really was reached there, so on the back of that we’ve been invited to come along to the G7 meeting.”

The G7 countries represented 25 percent of world’s GDP, so the meeting was “quite significant”, and it was a chance to talk about issues there were important with some of the big economies of the world, he said.

“There’s a big focus on supply chains – how we get goods and services to market.

“If you think about New Zealand exporters at the moment, a lot of the goods that we send to the UK or the European Union, it’s harder and more expensive to get there because of disruptions of freight and shipping around the world.”

Last July, New Zealand signed a free-trade deal with the EU after years of negotiations, which removed 91 percent of tariffs for exports.

The New Zealand delegation to the G7 meeting would be focused on non-tariff trade barriers that made it harder for Kiwi businesses to sell into those markets, McClay said.

An estimated $12 billion in exports were lost to the economy ever year because of those barriers, he said.

“There’s a chance to talk to EU counties and others about how we can work together to recognise where [environmental] standards are similar, but get barriers down so it’s easier for New Zealand traders to do better in markets overseas.”

Asked by Guyon Espiner whether volatile times in world politics were making it harder to trade, McClay said he was still “optimistic”.

“It’s always hard for New Zealand trade ministers when it comes to negotiations – we produce things that are often protected around the world.

“But actually if you think about the last couple of years, there’s a few agreements that have been got up, we’re negotiating with the UAE at the moment and a couple of other parts of the world…

“My job as trade minister is that we are hustling on the world stage and – as other countries might want to put up barriers – to be there, to be in front of them and talking about the benefits of trade and just getting better access for Kiwis.

“There are big opportunities there – we’ve just got to make the most of them.”

McClay said he had only just arrived in Italy when the news of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump came through.

“A lot of people are very focused on it, and I guess the word that comes to mind is ‘shocking’ … we woke up and saw what happened … [it’s] a little bit hard to believe.

“What happened in the US over the last day or so just isn’t good for democracy. People have a right to voice their opinions and it’s just a great big diversion of attention.”