The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP)

Nov 29, 2010

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What is the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP)?
As of October 2010, 9 nations comprised of Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, USA, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, and Malaysia are engaged in Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) negotiations.
Since March of this year, TPP governmental negotiations have covered a broad range of topics including government procurement, the trade of goods, investments and services.

The average taxation rates for TPP countries
The average Customs Tariff of countries engaged in these negotiations varies greatly from 0% in Singapore (only beer and medicated liquor incur a levy), to 3.5% in Australia and the USA, 5.5% in Peru, 8.4% in Malaysia and 10.4% in Viet-Nam.

Existing FTAs among TPP & APEC countries
Already many bilateral agreements exist between TPP countries and the majority of these countries are involved in bilateral talks to further implement FTAs. In addition, among the 9 TPP countries there are 36 potential two-nation agreements and 10 bilateral FTA matches where negotiations are not occurring. However, within APEC (21 countries and regions), there are numerous bilateral and multiple country FTAs. The value of trade among APEC countries in 2009 totaled $3.759 trillion which APEC member countries account for 51.3%.

TPP in the global economy
Currently in the Asia pacific region broader FTAs such as ASEAN+3 (ASEAN plus China, Japan & Korea), ASEAN+6 (ASEAN+3, plus Australia, New Zealand and India) are being proliferated and added to the TPP negotiations.
7.4% of the world’s population (6.73 billion people, 2009 data) resides in the 9 TPP countries. 27.7% of the global economy is generated from the TPP countries which also accounts for 40.6% ($740 billion) of FDI in Japan and 27.7% ($57.8 trillion) of reciprocal trade in Japan.

The level of trade with Japan from FTA countries
25.7% ($580 billion) of Japan’s exports are to TPP countries (2009), and 24.6% ($551 billion) of imports come from TPP countries.

More information about TPP can be found in the PDF file below