The TPP Ministerial Meeting was held in Singapore from 7th-10th December 2013.

The aim of the Ministerial Meeting was to take stock of the progress made in the negotiations since the Bali Leaders Meeting in October 2013 and to provide guidance on appropriate compromises to enable negotiators to overcome the remaining outstanding issues in the various Chapters. Leaders in Bali decided to conclude the TPP negotiations by year end. This has been proven to be impossible to achieve.

While there was progress, wide gaps still remain in many of the Chapters that would require further negotiations. On State-Owned Enterprises, Environment, Intellectual Property Rights and Market Access, many issues are still outstanding and negotiators have been tasked to explore solutions.

Malaysia continued to negotiate based on the mandate given by the Cabinet. In Singapore, Malaysia had highlighted our specific concerns and sensitivities in the areas of government procurement, state-owned enterprises, bumiputera issues, IPR, environment and ISDS as well as the need for flexibilities including carve-outs, transition periods and country specific commitments. Malaysia continues to work with other TPP Members on the details of these flexibilities.

In the market access negotiations, there has been some improvement in the offers of TPP Members but Malaysia is continuing to seek a better package.

Malaysia will continue with the domestic process of engagement and consultations with the Parliamentary Caucus, civil society and other stakeholders to share with them the Government’s stand on various issues. We would like to reiterate that after the conclusion of the TPP negotiations, the text will be presented to Parliament for debate.

I would like to stress that the consultations that the Government is undertaking with  various stakeholders should be the source of reference on Malaysia’s stand rather than the reported Wikileaks disclosure. The Malaysian public should not base their assessment on the on-going TPP negotiations on Wikileaks.

There is a lot more work to be done by negotiators before negotiations can be finalised. Negotiators are currently working on the timetable for future work in relation to TPP negotiations.

Source: http://www.miti.gov.my

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