Malaysia’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which will host the forthcoming round of negotiations under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks scheduled in July, announced Thursday, June 20, that in 14 out of 29 chapters of the agreement, “negotiations on technical and less contentious issues are considered substantially closed.”
The 14 chapters do not include key areas such as market access and tariffs, but the announcement indicates that Japan, which is expected to join the talks in the later part of the round of negotiations in Malaysia, is getting less chance to have its say as the final stages draw near.
In the TPP initiative, 21 working groups are negotiating on 29 chapters to achieve a comprehensive agreement by the end of this year. According to the ministry’s announcement, the 14 chapters in which negotiators reached basic agreement are: sanitary and phytosanitary measures, customs cooperation, cross-border trade in services, telecommunications, temporary entry, government procurement, labor, cooperation and capacity building, competitiveness and business facilitation, development, small and medium enterprises, regulatory coherence, initial and general definitions and administrative and institutional provisions.
The announcement also stated that while negotiations in these chapters are substantially closed, “there are still outstanding issues that are sensitive and will require discussion at a later stage of the negotiations.” “Sensitive issues are put aside for further deliberation by all negotiating countries,” it said. Although not specified, the “sensitive” issues apparently include the chapter on market access, which cover tariffs on agricultural products that are key Japanese interests.
The ministry said that the difficult areas for Malaysia are those relating to the areas of intellectual property rights, state-owned enterprises, labor and environment. It also noted that nongovernmental organizations are raising concerns over such issues as investor-state dispute settlement and sovereignty, as well as confidentiality of negotiations.
(June 25, 2013)