Graeme A Thomson

Mr Graeme A. Thomson was born in 1942. He has degrees in economics and politics from the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University and is Principal, Graeme Thomson and Associates, International Trade and Government Relations Consultants, Canberra. A. C. T. Australia. He is a former senior officer of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Government of Australia.

Mr Thomson has specialised in commodity and multilateral trade issues since he began his career in government in 1965 and has published a number of articles in these fields. He led numerous Australian delegations to inter-governmental trade meetings and has been deeply involved for the Government of Australia in the launching of the GATT Uruguay Round, the formation of the Cairns Group of agriculture fair trading countries and in the establishment of closer economic cooperation between Asian and Pacific countries. He had personal carriage of Prime Minister Hawke's 1983 regional trade initiative which led to enhanced links and co-operation with Asia-Pacific economies. He led the Australian side in the 1988 Review of the Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (Free Trade Agreement) with New Zealand which dealt with the outstanding difficult items standing in the way of achieving full free trade across the Tasman. In the 1970s he was involved for the Government of Australia in a number of anti-trust cases where Australia contested the extraterritorial assertion of jurisdiction by the U.S.A.

In 1989 he was Visiting Fellow at the Trade Policy Research Centre, London.

Between September 1989, and December 1992 Mr Thomson was Minister (Commercial) in the Embassy of Australia, Washington D.C., where he was responsible for Australia's trade and commercial relations with the United States. Mr Thomson served as Counsellor (Commercial) at the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C., in the mid 1970s.

Upon returning to Canberra Mr. Thomson took up the position of Principal Adviser in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In this position in the Department he was also Chairman of the Processed Foods Market Access Committee as well as the Department's Market Access Facilitator for Processed Foods and Beverages. Mr Thomson's duties in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade were heavily focused on increasing market access for Australian exports, implementation aspects of the Uruguay Round, the on-going multilateral trade agenda and new trade agenda subjects such as trade and environment. He has represented Australia at a number of APEC meetings and has a deep knowledge of Asia Pacific trade issues. From 1993 to 2001 Mr Thomson was Vice Chairman of the OECD Trade Committee, a position to which he was elected by his peers.

Since 1993 Mr. Thomson has been Chief Negotiator for Australia on China's accession to the WTO. He was also Australia's Chief Negotiator for Chinese Taipei and Saudi Arabia's accessions to the WTO. Each of these negotiations was brought to a successful conclusion. Mr Thomson retired from Government service in October 2001.

Mr Thomson now specializes in providing strategic advice on international trade issues, market access issues, disputes, negotiations and problem solving relating to agriculture, resources, manufactured goods and services. He is an accomplished Conference speaker.