Founding The Cairns Group was founded in August 1986, when the Australian government spearheaded the formation of a group and organized the inaugural meeting in the city of
Cairns,
Australia. There were 14 original member countries—Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Fiji, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Uruguay—a very diverse group politically and economically. The Australian government led the formation of the group, though some of the
South East Asian countries had been working together on agricultural trade through
ASEAN. "One of the most striking aspects of the Cairns Group was the intellectual leadership provided by Australia and to a lesser extent Canada. Australia's commitment to
trade liberalization was the outcome of a long domestic debate in which
neoliberal ideas had supplanted
protectionism and become the guiding rationale of foreign and domestic policy. The Cairns Group offered a mechanism to promote this agenda in a key
multilateral forum." After its December 2013 meeting in
Bali,
Indonesia, the Cairns Group issued a communiqué stating its concern about "the trend of import restrictions" that go against the
Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and serve as
technical barriers to trade on agricultural products. It criticized "overly complex SPS measures and technical regulations, including
food labelling". ==References==