THE Australian government has expressed hopes that the free-trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will be signed within this year to facilitate trade growth in the region and remove trade and nontrade barriers.

Newly designated Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Rod Smith said the negotiations on the Australia-New Zealand FTA with Asean economies have really developed in the last two years, with focus on improving trade and business facilitation for the concerned economies.

“The negotiations have been ongoing for the last two years and our target is to conclude it within this year. Our approach is to have everything on the table for a comprehensive free-trade agreement between Australia-New Zealand and Asean,” said Smith in an interview late Wednesday at the launch of the “Australia, Australia” trade forum in Makati City.

He said the FTA seeks to focus on the “practicalities” of the issues by addressing the barriers to trade and flow of goods and investments among the economies.

Smith said the free-trade deal would also further increase the bilateral trade volume between the Philippines and Australia, which reached A$2 billion in 2007.

The 10 member-economies of Asean are also negotiating free-trade deals with the European Union (EU), Japan, China and South Korea. Asean groups the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Burma/Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Australian companies in the Philippines launched the trade forum “Australia, Australia” that seeks to promote a wide range of Australian products in the Philippines.

Figures from the Australian Embassy in Manila showed that imports into the Philippines reached over $830 million last year. The Australian food and agribusiness exports to the Philippines were valued at A$250 million in 2006.

“Australian products are taking part in this continuously growing industry where Australian-branded food and beverage products items appear more and more on local supermarket shelves,” said Peter O’Byrne, chief executive officer of the Australian Trade Commission.

O’Byrne said the trade program “Australia, Australia” seeks to raise the profile of Australia products in the Philippines.

“The event seeks to make people realize that great Australian products already sold in the Philippines are the most excellent products,” said O’Byrne in an interview.

Australia is a traditional source of premium food and dairy products like cheese, yoghurt, confectionery and beverages. Australian food companies in the Philippines include Harvey Fresh, Bulla and Bega cottage cheese.

Major coffee companies with products from Australia have also set up in the Philippines, like Gloria Jeans Coffee and Mocha Blends while Paton’s Macadamia, one of the world’s largest ranges of destination boxes of chocolate macadamias, has also set up products in the Philippines.

THE country’s export earnings in February continued to increase and posted a year-on-year growth of 10.7 percent, according to the latest data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Thursday.

THE Australian government has expressed hopes that the free-trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will be signed within this year to facilitate trade growth in the region and remove trade and nontrade barriers.

MORE than half of the Philippines’ potential irrigable farmlands or 1.69 million hectares do not have irrigation and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) estimates that it would take billions of pesos to provide irrigation to all these areas.

FRUIT and vegetable farming for Crispolo Galasa, 47, is an annual activity. The time to plant, harvest or \change the crops has been an agenda he knows by heart. All of a sudden, however, the whole schedule is in shambles.

THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) eyes a dramatic increase in mining investments in the next three years as local and foreign companies continue to support the government’s mining-revitalization program.

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—A medical and wellness facility, complete with diagnostic, surgical and therapeutic wards, opened here on Tuesday to offer both out-patient and surgery services to customers in the Subic Bay area and the rest of Luzon.

THE ripple effect created by the government’s biggest tourism-development project, the Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Manila Bay Tourism City, would extend beyond the local hospitality industry and long after the year 2010, when locators in the project are expected to become fully operational.

SENATE President Manuel Villar Jr. is set to ask the Inter-Parliamentary Union IPM to use its collective clout in calling worldwide attention to the plight of countries encumbered by external debts and set in motion renewed efforts to push for “moratorium, condonation, or any other financial arrangements that enable debt-burdened countries to survive and rise again.”