5 Apr 2010

Fewer barriers to US trade with New Zealand

8:56 am on 5 April 2010

An American stocktake shows that companies there face fewer barriers to trade with New Zealand than they did a year ago.

The 404-page annual report, which covers all the main trading partners of the United States, highlights foreign investment rules and the drug-buying agency Pharmac as impediments to US trade with New Zealand.

Former trade negotiator Murray Denyer says there are fewer barriers for the US in New Zealand, compared with countries such as Japan.

But that does not mean, he says, that free-trade negotiations with the US will be plain sailing. Access to the protected US dairy market will be a stumbling block, he says.