Australia's International Trade, Free Trade & Protection Flashcards
5 Main linkage between economies
Trade: movement of g/s across borders
Merchandise and trade: goods only
Investment: occurs when an investor purchases assets in a foreign country (shares, property, new business)
Toursim: movement of people temporarily to a foreign country
Immigration: movement of people permanently to a foreign country
Trade export contributions?
Exports contribute to 26% of Aus GDP and around 24% of Aus workers are directly involved in trade related activities
What percentage of exports are commodities?
60%
Toursim accounts for?
accounts for 30% of the world’s exports of the worlds exports of commercial services
Investment relies?
relies on investment to supplement its domestic savings to help fund economic development
Immigration has been….
has been an important source of skilled labour and has helped to boost Aus population growth
What is Trade intensity
measures trade (sum of exports and imports) as a percentage of GDP
the 5 importance of trade Australia
- Australia’s economy relies on international sector for trade in g/s and funds for investment
- Historically, Aus has received more foreign investment than it provides (mainly for mining industry)
- Aus is an open economy - movement of g/s and investment is relatively unrestricted
- Australia has been an exporter of primary commodities
- and an importer of manufactured goods
What are Primary Commodities
naturally occurring and require little processing eg minerals and agricultural goods
What are manufactured goods
large amounts of labour/ capital used to process eg cars, machinery, clothing
3 Benefits of trade for consumers
- expand consumption possibilities through access to wider variety of g/s at cheaper prices
- this boosts standard of living
- many aus jobs rely on trade ( eg fifo workers, farmers) and therefore creates employment opportunities
5 Benefits of trade for producers
- increases production through exports as aus firms reach larger market (increase profits)
- import inputs/resources to reduce production
- transfer technology/ ideas from other countries encourages innovation
- exposure to competition from overseas motivates firms to adapt more efficient methods
- trade now accounts for over 46% of Aus GDP and is an important driver of growth
5 Patterns in Australia’s trade intensity
- covid pandemic caused Australia trade intensity to fall to below 40%
- aus trade intensity is relatively low compared to other countries
- USA,china,japan have lower trade to GDP ratios than Australia, due to the size of their domestic economies
- their size of their economies enables them to reap the advantages of economies of scale
- overtime, australias trade intensity has increased with exports and imports
Australias composition of trade
Refers to the makeup of exports and imports
EXPORTS
- aus exports primary commodities
- overtime, increased importance on minerals and decline in rural/manafactures exports
- due to high demand from chinas growing economy for minerals and resources
IMPORTS
- aus mainly imports manufactured goods(consumer/captial goods)
- aus has a relatively small manufacturing industry
australias direction of trade
Refers to a country’s top trading partners.
- aus shifts away from eurpoe towards asia pacific region
- accounts for 80% of aus exports and 70% of aus imports
- countries in this region are part of the APEC(asia pacific economic corporation)
why has aus direction of trade changed?
changed due to:
- historically, au had ties with UK/eurpoe
- UK joined EU, aus was forced to find new markets
- asia pacific was close with low transport costs
- has high popu growth and demand w/ limited supply of raw materials
- aus provides cheap energy, agri goods and resources to growing popu.
FTA(free trade agreements)
agreements between nations to reduce or elimante trade borders that inhibit the international flow of g/s and investment
3 types of FTA’s
Bilateral: between 2 nations
- advantages: easy to negotiate and implement
- disadvantages: creates complexity in the trade system as nations can have different rules within agreements
- eg, ChAFTA - China-Australia
Multilateral: between more than 2 nations (eg. AANZFTA - ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand)
Regional: between countries within the same geographical region (eg. EU)
3 Trade Barriers
Tarrifs: tax on imports
Subsidies: govt payment to domestic firms
Quotas: limit or restriction on the no. of imports
Trade Bloc?
RTa’s can act as a trade bloc
- a group of countries that agree to reduce barriers to trade between themselves but impose barriers on countries outside the ‘bloc’
- RTA’s may cause trade diversion rather than trade creation
What is trade creation
occurs when the agreement creates trade which otherwise would not have existed.
- happens when countries specialise in producing only goods they are efficient in and import the goods they are inefficient in
- production shifts from high cost producer to low cost producer
what is trade diversion
occurs when production shifts from low cost producer outside the FTA, to a high cost producer within the FTA
What are Benefits of trade
Specialisation