Pact with US a gold mine, says Mulroney

A free trade agreement with the United States is "like falling down a gold mine," former Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Brian Mulroney, said in Auckland yesterday.

The architect of Canada's free trade agreement with the United States - the North American Free Trade Agreement - extols the benefits of New Zealand seeking a similar relationship with Washington.

Mr Mulroney said that, while such matters were for this country to decide, the experience of his own country since the agreement was signed had been one of growing wealth.

In the 12 years since the agreement was signed Canadian exports to the United States had increased from $C100 billion ($161 billion) to $C360 billion ($581 billion) while imports have also tripled from $C86 billion ($139 billion) to $C268 billion ($433 billion), making it the biggest two-way trade relationship in world history.

"Four out of five jobs created in Canada since 1993 have been related to trade with the United States," he said. "That means three million jobs, not far short of the entire population of New Zealand."

The 1988 election campaign in Canada became a plebiscite on free trade, Mr Mulroney said, and the campaign was bitterly fought.

"In advocating free trade with the United States we were the change leaders, and the voters also had confidence in us to be the change managers. In the end, we prevailed because democracies are always inspired by the clash of great ideas."

He said the Canadian debate was in some ways analogous with New Zealand's debate over CER in the sense that it raised concerns over economic and cultural security.

The economic benefits had seen Canada move ahead in leaps and bounds and, far from being submerged, Canadian cultural exports had dramatically increased.

Mr Mulroney, whose visit was organised by the New Zealand APEC Business Coalition, was speaking at a workshop jointly organised by the University of Auckland, the New Zealand Herald and McKinsey & Company.

The workshop, attended by representatives of the public and private sectors, was organised to define key initiatives to be considered by the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference in August.

Among the initiatives reported back from the seminar's working groups were:

* The Government to sign a bilateral trade agreement with North America within two years.

* An immigration policy that achieves a well-integrated, high-talent population of five million by 2005.

* A business community commitment to increase private sector R&D expenditure to place New Zealand in the top 25 per cent of OECD countries.

* Greater collaboration and sponsorship by business in the education sector.

* Re-allocation of Government spending in school education to increase literacy and numeracy.

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