New Zealand agrees free-trade deal with GCC

Alamy/Grant Rooney Premium via Reuters

• 99% of exports will be duty free
• Trade worth $3bn in 2023
• Meat and dairy produce top list

The GCC has agreed a new free-trade deal with New Zealand. The agreement will give duty-free access to 99 percent of New Zealand exports over 10 years, according to New Zealand trade minister Todd McClay. 

McClay said the agreement was the culmination of an 18-year-long ambition to agree a trade deal in the Middle East.

“This is the highest quality deal the GCC has done to date and its first with a major agricultural exporter,” he said.

When combined with the recently concluded New Zealand-UAE comprehensive economic partnership agreement, 51 percent of New Zealand exports to the region “will be tariff-free from day one”, McClay added. 

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Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, secretary general of the GCC, said that trade between the GCC and New Zealand reached nearly $3 billion in 2023, with GCC exports valued at $1.75 billion and imports at $1.2 billion.

McClay said that New Zealand has exported goods worth $1.5 billion in the six months to June this year, including $1 billion of dairy produce, $155 million of red meat, $43 million of horticulture and $42 million of travel and tourism services.

The free trade deal aims to give preferential access for New Zealand’s primary sector exporters, streamline customs processes, reduce trade barriers and level the playing field for services businesses entering the GCC market.

The UAE accounts for half of New Zealand’s trade with the Middle East and North Africa region, and is the 10th largest globally.