Research On The China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

On April7,2008, China and New Zealand officially signed a new bilateral free tradeagreement. The Agreement, covering many areas including trade in goods, trade in serviceand investment, is the first all-round FTA between China and other countries and also the firstone between China and a developed country. The conclusion of the FTA negotiationsrepresented the fourth in a series of “firsts” in the bilateral trade relationship between the twocountries. It is a new milestone in the development of China-New Zealand bilateral relationsand also a critical step for China to implement the strategy of FTA. The FTA created a newplatform for enhancing the economic cooperation and infused the trade. It is not onlybeneficial for the two countries to fully review the implementation of the agreement but alsobeneficial for enterprises and local governments of the two countries to further understand theagreement so as to develop the cooperation potential in the future. In addition, the FTA alsooffered some precious experience for China in further negotiation FTA with other countriesand implements the strategy of FTA. The paper joined the jurisprudence and the economicresearch together, and adopted a comparative study method, tried to draw a macroscopicpicture of framework and a microscopic picture of the specific system of the FTA. The papermainly based on those two pictures and tries to find out the features of the FTA, then analyzedthe defects which still exists in the FTA. In addition, the paper gave some reasonablecomplements to fix those defects.This thesis deals with China-New Zealand FTA from four aspects:The first part, from the perspective of legal definition and sources of C-N FTA,combined with economic theory analysis, to study the trade effect of C-N FTA. Further, tostudy the current FTA treaty practice of China, in order to compare the international FTApractice of China and its treaty practice with New Zealand.The second part, after outlining the negotiation history of the FTA, this part will analyzethe outcomes of the FTA, from direct and indirect of economic data, then, summarize theeconomic meaning and the strategy meaning of the FTA.Part three based on the framework of the FTA. First sum up and sort out the clauses andthe main content of the FTA from a macroscopic view. Second deeply analyze three specificsystems from a microscopic view, which including the Rules of Origin, Movement of theNature Persons and the Investment dispute settlement mechanism. The analyses mainly adopt the comparative study method, which take the FTA compare with the relevant provisionsunder NAFTA and CAFTA. Finally, the characteristics and the deficiencies of the agreementcan be generalized.Part four takes advantage of the above conclusion, and gives up with several proposalsfor the perfection the FTA between China and New Zealand in the areas of trade in goods,trade in service and investment. This part also adopts a comparative study method and takesthe FTA comparing with the relevant provisions under NAFTA and CAFTA, especially on thepart of agriculture special safeguards measures, the movement of nature persons, marketaccess system and the dispute settlement mechanism.