The Agreement, “signed”:http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/aust-thai/index.html today, is a significant for the Australia-Thailand bilateral relationship but the measured impacts are relatively small: about $A2.4bn additional buying-power for Australian consumers over the next 20 years and about $6.8bn for Thai consumers. For Australia, most of the gains are in non-durable manufactures (processed food, metals) and durable manufactures (big passenger cars, light trucks). For Thailand the biggest gains are in services (although mostly because of their own services trade liberalization). Gains from free trade
| Imports from | Share of GDP | Cuts in tariff barriers | ||||
| Australia | Thailand | Australia | Thailand | Australia | Thailand | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US$ million | US$ million | Percent | Percent | Percent | Percent | |
| Energy | 78 | 92 | 13 | 14 | 0.0 | 3.8 |
| Mining | 309 | 68 | 1 | 1 | 0.4 | 2.6 |
| Agriculture | 161 | 62 | 5 | 6 | 0.2 | 21.1 |
| Durable manufacturing | 585 | 986 | 8 | 9 | 3.1 | 17.3 |
| Non-durable manufacturing | 263 | 449 | 7 | 7 | 3.3 | 21.5 |
| Services* | 228 | 344 | 67 | 62 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
*_for services_ the cuts are measured as the cut in prices due to import liberalization. (“CIE”:http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/aust-thai/tafta_eco_effects_cie.pdf) These estimates are based on incomplete data. They do not include estimates of the gains from elimination of the quotas, quarantine measures, licensing and other barriers (especially on the Thai side) that are also to be eliminated, mostly over the next 10 years.