New Zealand hosts FIT Partnership Ministerial Meeting

It was one of the largest and most diverse trade-focused gatherings to be hosted in New Zealand in many years. Ministers and delegations representing small and medium-sized trade-dependent economies came together at the FIT Partnership’s second Ministerial Meeting to work on practical support for businesses, removing trade frictions, bolstering trade resilience and reinforcing global trade rules.

Three new FIT Partnership members – Korea, Peru and Thailand – were welcomed at the Auckland meeting. They join Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay, bringing the total membership to 19.

The 17 July meeting agenda included:

• Confronting non-tariff barriers (NTBs) – Unjustified red tape, processes and regulations that make it harder and more costly for our exporters to access international markets. It’s estimated NTBs impact an estimated $9 billion of New Zealand trade, hitting the primary sector hardest.
• Promoting paperless and digital trade – This helps business reduce costs, increase productivity and create new opportunities, particularly for small to medium-sized enterprises.
• Tackling subsidies – Certain forms of subsidies can distort trade and investment flows, suppress global prices, and disadvantage competitive exporters. Addressing them is essential to restoring fair competition 
• Reinforcing the global trade rules and systems that deliver a level playing field, market access, give exporters certainty and transparency.

The FIT Partnership is not a substitute for the multilateral trading system – it is a catalyst for it. By bringing together agile, trade-dependent economies, FIT Partnership turns shared challenges into practical solutions and helps strengthen the rules and relationships that underpin global trade.