By Krista Hughes
LAHAINA, Hawaii, July 28 (Reuters) - The United States,
Canada and Japan have to make concessions on dairy trade before
a wider Pacific trade deal can be wrapped up, New Zealand's
agricultural trade envoy said on Tuesday.
Mike Petersen, a farmer who represents the interests of New
Zealand agriculture, said the dairy part of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiations was at an impasse. Ministers aim to
finish the trade negotiations this week in Hawaii.
"It's like a set of dominos, we are waiting for one country
to effectively make a move and that will trigger a whole lot of
other things for other countries in the talks," he told Reuters.
"The level of ambition for the dairy part of these talks is
just not where we need it to be, and so we need some real
movement over the next few days if we are going to get these
talks concluded.
"We have got to see movement with Canada and the USA, Japan
and New Zealand and Australia in particular, that's where the
dairy things lie," Petersen said.
TPP ministers start four days of meetings on Tuesday aimed
at wrapping up the 12-nation deal, which would cut tariffs and
set common standards on issues such as environmental standards
and intellectual property protections for 40 percent of the
world economy.
One TPP diplomat said countries were closing out issues of
less importance, which boded well for reaching agreement on
more contested issues this week.
While New Zealand and Australia are pressing for more dairy
exports to U.S., Canadian and Japanese markets, U.S. milk
producers are eyeing more access to Japan and Canada to make up
for any extra imports into the United States from countries such
as New Zealand.
According to material prepared for the meetings by the Dairy
Companies Association of New Zealand, the European Union has 30
percent of global dairy trade, New Zealand has 17 percent and
the United States 13 percent, with the U.S. share having tripled
since 2003.
Within the 12-nation TPP trade network, the United States
has nearly half the dairy market, compared with New Zealand at
30 percent. The majority of New Zealand dairy farmers will not
break even this year, the presentation said.
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Factbox on outstanding issues: ID:nL1N103036
Graphic on TPP trade flows: http://link.reuters.com/vyf35w
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(Editing by Louise Ireland and Ken Wills)