BRUNEI'S involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will help build Brunei's economy in the long term to ensure the country has a "flexible and robust" economy, an APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) member said.

Tony Nowell (pic), the chair of Scion and an ABAC representative from New Zealand, said that with Brunei being a small economy like New Zealand and Singapore, there is a need for the Sultanate to be less reliant on oil and gas.

"That's important for (Brunei) because if you rely completely on oil and gas, one day the oil and gas may run out so (Brunei) needs to be building the other industries over time," he said. 

The TPP would open up Brunei's market to the world and help the country gain access to the global market, he said. "I think what's important for Brunei is if you need to have a future economy that is not just oil and gas, you need to allow other people to come to your market just the same way that you want to go into theirs," he said.

Nowell, who earlier this year was a part of the New Zealand-United States Council (NZ US) to discuss the opportunities that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) can deliver, congratulated Brunei on being "a very open market". 

"It has been involved in the P4 (Brunei, New Zealand, SIngapore and Chile) for quite sometime now, so it has already got quite an open market," he said.

Asked about when the TPP is scheduled to be completed, Nowell said that that the agreement could be sealed by next year. "I don't think that it will be finished this year because there is not enough time left and now we have Canada and Mexico that have come into the negotiations just this week."

Nowell said he doesn't see any reason why "the trade officials that have worked hard on the issue can't have it completed next year".

A few chapters of the agreement have already been completed, he said, but due to the nature that the negotiations are being carried out, no more details will be announced until the deal is complete.

"What is important about the TPP is that we are negotiating a very high quality agreement, so when we make anything of high quality, whether it is a trade agreement or clothing, it takes time," he said, adding that "a lot of care and attention goes into making something of high quality".

One reason why the TPP agreement has been taking so long to complete, he said, is that all parties involved have to agree on everything on a secondary level. 

"You have to get bilateral agreements between individual countries because the TPP, when completed, will come across the top of bilateral agreements that are sitting in place already," he said. The Brunei Times

September 9, 2012

Source: Brunei Times

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