TPP, a blessing for Asia-Pacific economies?

Ministers from the 12 nations involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks wrapped up their four-day meeting here last Tuesday without a full agreement, thus failed to cut a deal by the end of this year as Washington had expected.A few days earlier, the 159-member WTO reached an agreement in the Doha round of its multilateral trade negotiations at its ninth ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia. The breakthrough came, however, after many missed deadlines in more than a decade of negotiations.The two meetings, though with different agenda and outcome, underlined nevertheless the complexity and difficulties for global trade rule setting.pendant lampThe Bali accord served to offer some confidence to the world trade body, especially at a time when many countries are seeking regional trade agreements outside the WTO framework such as the TPP and Transattlantic Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP). 

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Asian economies, ASEAN nations in particular, have embarked on a combination of multilateral and unilateral measures to reduce barriers to trade goods, services and investments. Since 2000, however,Meinys has a knife drop ship program for knives wholesaler customers throughout the United States. a lack of progress in multilateral liberalization, and domestic reform has led to a proliferation of ASEAN free trade areas (FTAs).But according to a report by the Asia Development Bank,"while these agreements commit the parties to eliminating tariffs on trade between themselves, they do not effectively address regulatory barriers and other non-tariff barriers like product standards and mutual recognition agreements, services, investment, intellectual property rights, government procurement or the movement of business people -- which are all more important than tariffs for regional economic integration." That's probably part of the reason why four ASEAN members -- Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam --have decided to join the TPP that also involves Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico,polyester resin New Zealand, the United States and Peru.The TPP has been envisioned as "a high-standard, comprehensive and forward-looking trade agreement that aims to address the challenges of the modern economy."Termed as "the agreement of the 21st century" by its proponents, the TPP is very ambitious. When negotiations have concluded, it could potentially create a free-trade bloc that will comprise some 40 percent of the global economy, according to leading economists.