Trans-Pacific Partnership to be concluded next year

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PHNOM PENH: Malaysia has agreed that negotiations for the setting up of the United States-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an Asia-Pacific regional free-trade scheme, be concluded by the end of next year, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak yesterday.

The prime minister said 14 rounds of negotiations had been held thus far and negotiations on the text were now centred on the difficult and contentious provisions.

“I stressed that all participants must show flexibility to reach an acceptable package which is balanced and implementable. Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei also gave similar views,” he told the Malaysian media after attending the TPP meeting, here.

TPP consists of 11 members at the moment and seven of its members – Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and United States — attended yesterday’s meeting. The four other members are Chile, Peru, Mexico and Canada.

Leaders of the seven nations are here as they are attending the Related Summits, after the 21st Asean Summit.

United States President Barack Obama attended yesterday’s TPP meeting.

“All the leaders agreed that the TPP should be a high-quality agreement that could attract more members and contribute towards regional integration of Asia-Pacific,” Najib said.

He suggested that transition periods be considered for difficult issues as a pragmatic way to conclude the negotiations.

The negotiations involve two aspects with the legal text of each chapter spelling out the rights and obligations of members and the market access schedules for goods, services and government procurement.

On market access, Najib said the participants had reviewed the initial offers and were trying to improve each other’s offer.

Out of the indicative 29 chapters, negotiations on three chapters – Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Cooperation and Capacity Building and Competition Policy have concluded.

Negotiations on government procurement, state-owned enterprises, intellectual property, labour and environment have posed some challenges for Malaysia.

“The TPP will account for 28 per cent of our global trade. With all the other FTAs we have, and are negotiating, this will bring our total trade under preferential treatment to more than 80 per cent,” Najib said.

In layman’s term, more than 80 per cent of Malaysia’s trade will eventually be conducted duty-free.

With TPP, in a single negotiating initiative, Malaysia will be able to create preferential arrangements for market access with four countries — the United States, Mexico, Canada and Peru — that Malaysia do not have FTAs with.

The TPP agreement will also contain measures to facilitate the functioning of the supply
chain.

“Being part of the TPP supply chain, Malaysia has the potential to draw investors and make Malaysia the preferred investment destination.

“The TPP also has a dedicated SME chapter which has enabling provisions to facilitate greater integration of SMEs into the global network through information exchange, capacity building and other programmes to be explored once the agreement comes into force,” Najib said. — Bernama