THE 16th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations ended here yesterday with chief negotiators of the 11 participating countries noting the progress made in the working groups on regulatory coherence, telecommunications, customs and development.

The negotiators acknowledged, however, that sticking points remain in the more challenging areas of intellectual property (IP), the environment, competition and labour. Further deliberations among the participating countries will be required.

The TPP discussions, organised to sort out free- trade issues, have run their course here for the last 10 days, involving more than 600 delegates.

As the aim is to conclude negotiations within this year, the chief negotiators and 20 working groups pursued talks with renewed focus, logging progress in the four mentioned areas, leaving the rest to be taken up in negotiation rounds closer to the finalisation of the agreement.

The chief negotiators of the 11 member countries - Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, the United States, Singapore and Vietnam - yesterday told reporters that discussions in the areas of services, e-commerce, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, technical barriers to trade and government procurement had also continued in earnest.

Singapore's chief negotiator Ng Bee Kim said: "There was a distinct sense that negotiations were shifting gears. As host of this round, the Singapore team was committed to invigorating negotiations, such as by exploring fresh configurations for talks."

Ms Ng, who is also director-general of trade at Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry, said that one innovation lay in breaking up some working groups into smaller informal meetings "to tease out the more difficult issues with fresh eyes".

Delegates are hoping that the talks - specifically those on goods, services, investment and government procurement - will produce a comprehensive market- access package that will create new opportunities and maximise the TPP's potential as a regional trade agreement benefiting all member countries.

Besides keeping to a schedule of meetings, TPP negotiators had also engaged 300 local and international stakeholders from the private sector, civil society, labour groups and academia to hear their views on the proposed elements of the TPP agreement.

The 17th round of negotiations will take place in Lima, Peru, from May 15 to 24.

TPP ministers are also expected to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting for trade ministers in Surabaya, Indonesia, from April 20-21.

Source: Business Times 

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