The Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations agreement remains one of the most successful trade agreements in the world, but its next phase will look very different.
This Insight highlights that what remains is behind-the-border barriers, including regulatory differences, misaligned standards, and administrative costs, which are economically important but much harder to resolve and argues that the next phase of CER will not be driven solely by the bilateral relationship, but will extend beyond it — using CER as a platform for deeper regional integration.