Free trade is dead, long live the knowledge economy

Soul Machines' digital 'person' Ella – export of the future. (Image: NZME)

Tue, 25 Oct 2022

The era of free-trade agreements is over.In its full-blown form, since the conclusion in April 1994 of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), that era has been one of enormous value to New Zealand’s agricultural commodity exporters.The high point, the free-trade agreement with China, signed in 2008 by Helen Clark’s Labour-led government, fundamentally shifted this country’s trade patterns, with China set to be NZ’s largest trading partner long into the future on current trends.However, NZ...

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