Summary of the 15th Round of Negotiations on the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement

April 27, 2012
Japanese

The 15th round of negotiations on the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was held from Monday, April 23 to Friday, April 27 in Canberra.
In this round, Mr. Shinichi Nishimiya, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and officials from relevant ministries and agencies of Japan, and Mr. Bruce Gosper, Deputy Secretary of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and officials from relevant departments of Australia respectively participated.
In this round, useful discussions were held in areas such as trade in goods and services, investment, rules of origin, and food supply. A summary of the discussions is as follows:
(1) In respect of market access of trade in goods, both sides had broad range of discussions on their concerns based on the discussions so far, regarding both primary products and industrial products.

(2) In respect of trade in services and investment, both sides continued discussions on their respective requests and the draft texts.

(3) In respect of rules of origin, both sides continued discussions on remaining issues including the draft text.

(4) In respect of food supply, both sides discussed the draft text regarding stable supply of food.
The next 16th round of negotiations will be held in Tokyo around June, 2012. The detailed schedule will be determined through diplomatic channels.

(*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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