Australia and China signed a free-trade deal today, cutting or eliminating tariffs and promoting investment. China is buying 36% of its merchandise exports last year (half of that in iron ore and concentrates) and supplying 20% of its imports (led by telecoms equipment, computers and clothes). It also will delay the exemption of import tariffs on Australian thermal coal, giving Chinese miners a much-needed buffer for local prices to recover and would eliminate a 3 percent coking coal tariff immediately and a 6 percent tariff on thermal coal within two years.
