WELL it happened. All of the hype surrounding an imminent free trade agreement with the population Titan of the world - China - is finally at a stage where people can rejoice properly.
It was only last week that I wrote, with some scepticism, about the much-vaunted benefits that every man and his dog seemed to be trumpeting would be the result of this historic event.
But I am now cowed by the scope of the agreement and the potential benefits of this deal have me reeling with the enormity of the sums involved.
There will be plenty of column centimetres devoted to this subject, but I would like to present a very simplified version of the potential benefits of this - excuse the hackneyed phrase - landmark agreement.
It's not difficult to imagine why it was 10 years in the making and the fact that it came to fruition is probably something of a miracle in itself.
The bargaining on the diplomatic front must have been a marathon, and that's without the continual harassment Australia's trade and foreign affairs officials must have gotten from the whole gamut of interested industry groups.
I'm staggered by the revelation that the livestock sector is expected to gain as much as $11 billion by the time 2030 comes along.
I won't dredge through the whole detailed list of what tariffs are, what and when they will disappear. It will make an impact on most stock producers when I give the projected increases in dollar values that it will generate.
How does the value of beef increasing by $270 million by 2024 and by 2030 a total benefit to the industry of an estimated $3.3b sound?
Pretty good - well that is just the beginning.
* Full report in Stock Journal, November 20, 2014 issue.
