Strong Progress Made In TPP Talks

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, Washington

01 November 2011

On October 28, 2011, the United States and its Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) partners - Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam - concluded a ninth round of negotiations in Lima, Peru.

During this round, it was stated that negotiators had built upon progress made in previous rounds and “pressed forward toward the goal of reaching the broad outlines of an ambitious, jobs-focused agreement by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ meeting in Honolulu,” from November 8.

At the meeting, it is expected that President Barack Obama and his counterparts from the other eight TPP countries will take stock of progress to date and discuss next steps, following the further considerable progress made during the latest negotiations on the legal texts of the agreement, as well as on the cross-cutting issues of small- and medium-sized enterprises, regulatory coherence, competitiveness, and development.

With further domestic consultation on outstanding issues, the nine countries should move toward closure of a number of chapters of the prospective agreement. On more complex and sensitive chapters, the countries will need more time to find convergence.

Before this round, the US put forward its new proposed text on state-owned enterprises, on which the teams had constructive initial discussions. This text is intended to help level the playing field for exporters by addressing distortions to trade and competition that result from unfair advantages governments provide to these enterprises. The US also tabled new text on labour issues, and it was reported that the teams had a productive exchange on this issue as well.

Nevertheless, the TPP member countries continued to make steady progress on the tariff packages they are negotiating for access to each other’s markets. In addition to meeting collectively, the US and its partners met bilaterally to advance discussions, and the countries now plan to prepare revised offers based on these discussions and requests made for improvements in specific areas.

The US and other negotiating teams will return to their respective capitals and update their governments on the specific outcomes of their work over the nine negotiating rounds, in preparation for assessment by the nine Leaders at the APEC meeting.

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