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New Zealand has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since it started in 1995. We were also a founding member of its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

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The World Trade Organization deals with the global rules of trade. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible between its members. New Zealand joined the WTO when it was created in 1995, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade organisation that was formed in 1947.

New Zealand's Permanent Mission in Geneva works together with MFAT's Trade Negotiations and Legal Divisions and a range of New Zealand Government agencies to represent the New Zealand Government at the WTO.

The key functions of the WTO are to:

oversee the negotiation and implementation of agreements
settle trade disputes
review the trade policies of individual members
help developing country members comply with WTO rules

The WTO is based on the premise that trade should be:

without discrimination - a member should not discriminate between its trading partners (the "most favoured nation" or MFN principle) and should not treat foreign goods and services differently from the way it treats its own (the "national treatment" principle);
free - this means removing unnecessary barriers to trade;
predictable and transparent - so companies, investors and governments can be confident that the rules will not be changed, or trade barriers raised, arbitrarily;
more competitive - by discouraging unfair practices such as subsidies and dumping; and
encouraging of development – while WTO-based trade enables development, developing country members may need help building their capacity to implement their obligations under the WTO agreements.

What does the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mean to New Zealand?

New Zealand is a small country with an economy that is highly dependent on trade. Our exports correspond to 21.9% of total GDP (2021). Membership in the WTO means that we benefit from its trade rules and members' market access commitments, and we have a process to settle disputes if other trade partners breach these.

New Zealand also actively participates in negotiations in pursuit of new market access commitments and trade rules. Negotiating at the WTO has numerous benefits. Without the WTO, New Zealand would have little influence over larger countries with trading practices that negatively affect us. Furthermore, the WTO operates by consensus. Every member’s opinion carries the same weight and decisions must be unanimous. This means that progress can be slow, but all members are obliged to honour agreements made.

The WTO also provides the basis for New Zealand negotiating specific free trade agreements either bilaterally or plurilaterally (with a group of countries), through specific provisions of the WTO agreements.

Ministerial Conferences

The Ministerial Conference is the highest decision-making body of the WTO and consists of all WTO members. The conference may make decisions on all matters under any of the WTO's multilateral trade agreements. Ministers last met during the Thirteenth WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13), which took place in February 2024 in Abu Dhabi.

The Minister for Trade Hon Todd McClay represented New Zealand at MC13, which led to a significant outcome on the extension of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions (more commonly known as the E-commerce Moratorium). Minister McClay facilitated the achievement of this successful outcome at the Ministerial Conference.

WTO agreements

At the heart of the WTO are the multilateral trade agreements. These are the legal ground rules for international trade covering goods, services and intellectual property that all WTO members must follow.

Goods

The rule book covering trade in goods is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Its aim is to reduce tariffs, non-tariff measures affecting trade, and subsidies which disadvantage competitors. The GATT is complemented by a large number of subsidiary agreements and annexes, dealing with various issues related to goods trade. These include:

Agreement on Agriculture
Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS)
Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)
Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures
Agreement on Import Licensing
Trade Facilitation Agreement

Services

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a set of rules covering trade in services (e.g., education, tourism, financial services, accountancy, legal services, and management consulting). Its objective is to ensure that such trade takes place under clear and predictable rules, and to ensure that there is no discrimination amongst trading partners (subject to certain exceptions). Each WTO member chooses which sectors to open up to foreign service suppliers for market access, and where they commit to treat foreign service providers in the same way they treat their own services providers.

Intellectual property

The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (or TRIPS) agreement sets out the minimum levels of protection for different forms of intellectual property, such as copyright (music, art and design), patents, inventions, and trade marks. Members are able to decide how to implement these minimum standards in their own domestic laws.

Fisheries subsidies

Subsidies contribute to overfishing by artificially reducing costs for the fishing industry, and inflating earnings. Since the Doha round was launched in 2001, fishing subsidies have increased and fish stocks have declined around the world.

New Zealand ratified the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (FSA) on 8 September 2023.

Negotiations are ongoing to further strengthen the obligations in the Agreement with respect to subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing.

Settling trade disputes

The WTO provides a legally binding process to settle trade disputes between members. Decisions are binding on WTO members, subject to a second tier of review, and can be enforced through approved trade sanctions. The dispute settlement system is of particular value to smaller countries, and their businesses, because it provides an impartial way to resolve trade disputes based on agreed rules as opposed to outcomes determined by the relative size and importance of the countries involved. The system has been used by WTO Member governments, including New Zealand, on more than 450 occasions since it was established in 1995.

However, the effectiveness of dispute settlement system was undermined in December 2019 when the WTO Appellate Body lost the ability to hear appeals due to an impasse over the appointment of new members to sit on it. This presents a significant risk to small, export-reliant countries like New Zealand who depend on the ability of the WTO to conclusively resolve trade disputes. As a decision cannot be enforced while an appeal is pending, this has frustrated the implementation of a number of decisions that were appealed after the Appellate Body ceased functioning.

MFAT has played an important role in developing an interim solution while this impasse continues. In March 2020, New Zealand and a group of other WTO members negotiated and agreed the text of an interim solution called the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). The MPIA is a stop-gap measure that preserves a second-tier of review in trade disputes between participants for the period the Appellate Body is unable to function. As of July 2024, 54 WTO Members are members of the MPIA. Other members include Australia, Canada, China, and the European Union.

MFAT has been involved in a number of WTO trade disputes on behalf of our exporters and the Government: nine as a complainant and over 40 as a third party. We make a complaint when our direct interests are significantly affected by a trade restriction. We participate as a third party in disputes between other WTO members when we want to influence the interpretation and application of WTO agreements on matters that are also of direct interest to us.

If you encounter an obstacle exporting a product or service to a WTO member country, you can contact MFAT and we will examine whether the restriction violates WTO rules. If it does, we'll first try and resolve the issue through direct discussion with the government concerned. Many trade problems have been resolved in this way. If we can’t reach a resolution, we'll then consider whether WTO dispute settlement proceedings would be an appropriate response.

Read about WTO disputes involving New Zealand

Negotiating at the WTO

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade works with other New Zealand government agencies to represent New Zealand’s interests during WTO negotiations, to ensure New Zealand's voice is heard, and that our economic interests are advanced and protected.

Current state of negotiations – beyond the Doha Round

The WTO Doha Round of trade talks, known as the Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda, began in 2001, covering a wide range of trade policy areas aimed at improving the existing rules around international trade. The main goal was to reach agreement on how to further reduce trade barriers, particularly for the benefit of developing country members.

Doha Round Negotiations have continued at varying levels of intensity since 2001, but currently are effectively on hold. New Zealand was active in Doha Round discussions, in particular in pursuit of strengthened disciplines on trade-distorting practices in agriculture, including agricultural subsidies.

New Zealand has also advocated for improved non-agricultural market access (NAMA), particularly fisheries and forestry products. New Zealand has been a strong advocate for the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement concluded at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) in 2022, as well as the ongoing negotiations for a comprehensive discipline on subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing in the second phase negotiations on this Agreement.

New Zealand has participated actively in services market access negotiations and the design of new services rules.

There has been some progress in some areas covered by the Doha Round:

Notably, at the 2013 meeting in Bali, Trade Ministers agreed the Bali Package - an outcome that included a new WTO agreement on Trade Facilitation designed to reduce administrative and procedural barriers to trade. The Trade Facilitation Agreement has now entered into force and is currently in the process of being implemented by the WTO membership.
At Nairobi in December 2015 WTO Trade Ministers agreed on a further package of outcomes, including elimination of the ability of WTO members to subsidise their agricultural exports. The elimination of such agricultural export subsidies had been a key goal for successive New Zealand Governments for decades. The outcome is of direct benefit to New Zealand agricultural exporters who previously had to compete in some markets with subsidised agricultural products.
At Buenos Aires in December 2017 Ministers agreed to continue negotiations on fisheries subsidies, with a view to adopting, by 2019, an agreement on comprehensive and effectives disciplines that prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, and eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Prohibiting harmful fisheries subsidies will have a significant environmental, developmental, and economic benefits for New Zealand and Pacific nations.
At Buenos Aires, New Zealand also joined Ministerial Statements amongst different subsets of WTO members seeking to advance work on Electronic Commerce; Services Domestic Regulation; Investment Facilitation; Micro, Small, and Medium Sized Enterprises; Women's Economic Empowerment and Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform.

Plurilateral agreements and negotiations

WTO members can also participate in WTO agreements in areas currently outside the multilateral rules. Some examples include:

The Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) establishes open, fair and transparent conditions of competition in over 40 Government Procurement markets around the world. As a signatory to the GPA, New Zealand companies are able to compete on equal terms with their international counterparts for government procurement contracts to provide a broad range of goods and services. Parties to the GPA include the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union. New Zealand joined the GPA on 13 August 2015.
the 1996 Information Technology Agreement (ITA), a plurilateral tariff agreement between a limited number of WTO members which progressively eliminated tariffs on a range of ICT products. In 2015 agreement was reached to expand the ITA in order to account for the rapidly evolving technologies in the ICT sector. The expanded ITA (known as ITA II) eliminates tariffs on 201 products estimated by the WTO to be worth NZD 1.9 trillion annually. New Zealand is a participant in both the ITA and the ITA II. Read more about the ITA(external link)
Some WTO members, including New Zealand, are pursuing an Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA). This seeks to remove tariff barriers for the free flow of green goods. Negotiations began in 2014 and, after eighteen rounds, failed to conclude at the Ministerial meeting in 2016 and remain stalled. New Zealand remains committed to reaching an ambitious and timely EGA, and is ready to work closely with others to explore options for renewed engagement, when the time is right.
New Zealand is also actively involved in WTO e-commerce negotiations, plurilateral discussions on investment facilition for development and the plurilateral joint initiative on services domestic regulation.

Trade Policy Reviews

The WTO monitors the trade policies and practices of Members through a process of regular Trade Policy Reviews (TPRs).

In addition to supporting the WTO’s monitoring and reporting function, the purpose of these reviews is to promote greater adherence to WTO rules and encourage greater transparency of Member’s trade and economic policies. The Trade Policy Review Body comprises the WTO’s full membership and all Members are subject to review. The reviews therefore amount to “peer-group assessments,” supported by the WTO Secretariat.

New Zealand has undergone six reviews, with the first taking place under the GATT (the precursor to the WTO) in 1990, and the most recent taking place in June 2022.

During the 2022 review process, New Zealand received over 440 questions on its trade policy, covering myriad topics including New Zealand’s network of regional trading agreements, rules governing overseas investment, agriculture (kiwifruit and dairy in particular), sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for imports, and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 41 WTO members made statements during the review meeting.

Most were very positive, with New Zealand praised for its “long-standing commitment to trade openness and to the multilateral trade system.” Members also commended New Zealand on the “resilience and growth performance of the New Zealand economy” in the wake of COVID-19 (attributed to the timely adoption of support measures), its “liberal agricultural regime” and that New Zealand’s trade policy aimed to “ensure trade benefits all New Zealanders”.