Guest Speaker:
Hon Tim Groser
former Trade Minister
Event Date: Wednesday 25th October 2023
Event Time: 5:30 pm-7:00 pm
Event Location:
Victoria University of Wellington – Pipitea Campus
Room RHMZ03, Mezzanine Floor, Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington - Pipitea Campus, 33 Bunny Street, Pipitea, Wellington, 6011.
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The Asia Forum, in collaboration with the Southeast Asia, Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence, Victoria University of Wellington, Pipitea Campus is hosting a discussion to be led by former Trade Minister Hon Tim Groser.
Synopsis:
In recent years the world has been through global pandemic, uncertainty of geopolitics, Russia-Ukraine war, worldwide inflation, disruption of global supply chains and the very real and growing climate catastrophes. All of these weigh heavily on the prospects for New Zealand’s trading economy. New Zealand has recently concluded free trade agreements with the UK, EU, and the UK is now a member of Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. On 21 August 2023, New Zealand also signed the Upgrade to the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA). How would these economic mechanisms stack up against the macroenvironment uncertainties. Would New Zealand benefit from more of these free trade agreements? What’s next?
About the speaker:
Hon Tim Groser has been involved with the politics of international dairy for four decades, going back to his appointment in 1985 as New Zealand chief agriculture negotiator in the last successful multilateral trade round, the Uruguay Round. As people involved in dairy know, dairy is the one area of international trade where New Zealand is not a small country.
Serving as Chair of the (now defunct) International Dairy Agreement in Geneva, he saw through the most disturbed post-war period of international dairy commerce and the stabilisation of many aspects of the global trade rules affecting world trade in dairy in 1993 at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. He was the initiator of the TPP Agreement (why NZ is the Administrator of the Agreement, now called CPTPP after President Trump’s decision to withdraw).
As Ambassador to the WTO, Tim was Chair of the WTO Agriculture Negotiations 2003-05 working closely with USTR Bob Zoellick and EU Commissioner Pascal Lamy. Tim was Minister of Trade 2008-15 and then appointed Ambassador to the United States. He was also Minister of Climate Change and established the Global Research Alliance on Agriculture Emissions which now has 67 Member countries. NZ and the Netherlands lead the research on dairy emissions.
Tim has worked closely with American agriculture leaders over many decades – in dairy, going back to a strong personal relationship with the late Tom Carmelo, former Chairman of DFA.
