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Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement
The Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) is a preferential trade agreement between Australia and the United States modelled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The AUSFTA was signed on 18 May 2004 and came into effect on 1 January 2005. History of the FTA The U.S. first proposed a free trade agreement with Australia as far back as 1945. In more recent times, the prospect of an Australia-U.S. FTA was raised in the 1980s by the Hawke government. In 1991 U.S. president George H. W. Bush offered to begin FTA negotiation with Australia and New Zealand, but was turned down by Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Paul Keating. It was not until early 2001, after the election of George W. Bush in the U.S. and with John Howard in power in Australia, that an Australia-U.S. FTA finally began to take shape. In April 2001, President Bush signalled his interest in pursuing an FTA with Australia provided "everything is on the table". Following this, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preferential Trade Agreement
A preferential trade area (also preferential trade agreement, PTA) is a trading bloc that gives preferential access to certain products from the participating countries. This is done by reducing tariffs but not by abolishing them completely. It is the first stage of economic integration. These tariff preferences have created numerous departures from the normal trade relations principle, namely that World Trade Organization (WTO) members should apply the same tariff to imports from other WTO members. With the recent multiplication of bilateral PTAs and the emergence of Mega-PTAs (wide regional trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)), a global trade system exclusively managed within the framework of the WTO now seems unrealistic and the interactions between trade systems have to be taken into account. The increased complexity of the international trade system generated by the multiplication of PTAs sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. There are a total of 76 senators: 12 are elected from each of the six states and territories of Australia, Australian states regardless of population and 2 from each of the two autonomous internal states and territories of Australia, Australian territories (the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory). Senators are popularly elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation. Unlike upper houses in other Westminster system, Westminster-style parliamentary systems, the Senate is vested with significant powers, including the capacity to reject all bills, including budget and appropriation bills, initiated by the government in the House of Representatives, maki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." – ''Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co.'', 191 F. 579, 584–85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911) In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copyright Expiration In Australia
Copyright expiry in Australia depends on when a work was created, and on the type of work. Under the current law, copyright usually expires 70 years after the death of the author, or for anonymous works, 70 years from the date of publication. Crown copyright expires 50 years after publication. The law has evolved over the years, and previously photographs were treated differently from other works. Anonymous works and photographs created before 1955 are no longer under copyright. For non-photographic works created before 1955, where the author is known, the copyright expires 50 years after the death of the author. Public domain photos before 1955 *Photographs taken before 1955 are now in the public domain *Photographs taken since 1955 will not be in the public domain until 1 January 2026 at the earliest, unless under crown copyright which expires 50 years after first publication. Any photo, published or unpublished, anonymous or attributed, taken before 1 January 1955 is out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Competition Policy (Australia)
The term National Competition Policy refers to a set of policies introduced in Australia in the 1990s with the aim of promoting microeconomic reform. Origins In 1992, an independent committee of inquiry, the National Competition Policy Review Committee, was established by Prime Minister Paul Keating to inquire into and advise on appropriate changes to legislation and other measures in relation to the scope of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the application of the principles of competition policy. The Committee was chaired by Fred Hilmer and also comprised Geoffrey Tapperall and Mark Rayner. The report was commissioned against a backdrop of major microeconomic reforms led by the Keating Government, but slow progress on areas of the economy sheltered from competition as a result of constitutional limits on the application of the Federal Trade Practices Act or of other actions by Federal or state governments. The report thus had important implications for state-owned enterprises, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agreement On Technical Barriers To Trade
The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, commonly referred to as the TBT Agreement, is an international treaty administered by the World Trade Organization. It was last renegotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, with its present form entering into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995, binding on all WTO members. Purpose The TBT exists to ensure that technical regulations, standards, testing, and certification procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. The agreement prohibits technical requirements created in order to limit trade, as opposed to technical requirements created for legitimate purposes such as consumer or environmental protection. In fact, its purpose is to avoid unnecessary obstacles to international trade and to give recognition to all WTO members to protect legitimate interests according to own regulatory autonomy, although promoting the use of international standards. The li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agreement On The Application Of Sanitary And Phytosanitary Measures
The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, also known as the SPS Agreement or just SPS, is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. Broadly, the sanitary and phytosanitary ("SPS") measures covered by the agreement are those aimed at the protection of human, animal or plant life or health from certain risks. Under the SPS agreement, the WTO sets constraints on member-states' policies relating to food safety (bacterial contaminants, pesticides, inspection and labelling) as well as animal and plant health (phytosanitation) with respect to imported pests and diseases. There are 3 standards organizations who set standards that WTO members should base their SPS methodologies on. As provided for in Article 3, they are the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customs (tax)
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties (i.e. tariffs) and other taxes on import and export. In recent decades, the views on the functions of customs have considerably expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation, security, and trade facilitation. Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, enforced by their respective customs authorities; the import/export of some goods may be restricted or forbidden entirely. A wide range of penalties are faced by those who break these laws. Overview Taxation The traditional function of customs has been the assessment and collection of customs duties, which is a tariff or tax on the importation or, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domestic Industry
Domestic may refer to: In the home * Anything relating to the human home or family ** A domestic animal, one that has undergone domestication ** A domestic appliance, or home appliance ** A domestic partnership ** Domestic science, sometimes called family and consumer science ** Domestic violence ** A domestic worker In the state * Domestic affairs, matters relating to the internal government of a Sovereign state * Domestic airport * Domestic flight * Domestic policy, the internal policy of a state Other * Domestic, Indiana, an unincorporated community in Wells County * ''Domestikos'' ( en, the Domestic), a Byzantine title ** Domestic of the Schools, commander-in-chief of the Byzantine army in the 9th-11th centuries * ''Domestic'' (film), a 2012 Romanian comedy film See also * Domestic discipline (other) * Housekeeper (other) Housekeeper may refer to: * Housekeeper (domestic worker), a person heading up domestic maintenance * "House Keeper" (song), 1996 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tariff-rate Quota
In economics, a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) (also called a tariff quota) is a two-tiered tariff system that combines import quotas and tariffs to regulate import products. A TRQ allows a lower tariff rate on imports of a given product within a specified quantity and requires a higher tariff rate on imports exceeding that quantity. For example, a country might allow the importation of 5,000 tractors at a tariff rate of 10%. However, any tractor imported above this quantity would be subject to a tariff rate of 30%. Unlike a simple quota system, a TRQ regime does not restrict the quantity of imported products. The “in-quota commitment” is complemented by an “out-of-quota commitment”. The out of quota commitment does not set any limit on the quantity or value of a imported product,, but instead applies a different, normally higher, tariff rate to that product. Imports face this higher duty rate once the in-quota quantity or value has been reached, or if any requirement associ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Export Subsidies
Export subsidy is a government policy to encourage export of goods and discourage sale of goods on the domestic market through direct payments, low-cost loans, tax relief for exporters, or government-financed international advertising. An export subsidy reduces the price paid by foreign importers, which means domestic consumers pay more than foreign consumers. The World Trade Organization (WTO) prohibits most subsidies directly linked to the volume of exports, except for LDCs. Incentives are given by the government of a country to exporters to encourage export of goods. Export subsidies are also generated when internal price supports, as in a guaranteed minimum price for a commodity, create more production than can be consumed internally in the country. (These price supports are often coupled with import tariffs, which keeps the domestic price high by discouraging or taxing imports on the difference between the world price and the mandatory minimum.) Instead of letting the commod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
