TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP - INTERNATIONAL
News: U.K. to join
Asia-Pacific trade treaty, Rishi Sunak hails ‘post-Brexit freedom’
What's in the news?
● The
U.K., acceded to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership (CPTPP), with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak describing the outcome as
an example of “post-Brexit freedoms”.
● The
agreement will now need to be ratified by Westminster and each of the CPTPP
countries.
Key takeaways:
● The
British government said the deal would mean that more than 99% of British
exports - including for key markets such as cheese, cars, chocolate, machinery,
gin and whisky would have zero tariffs.
Comprehensive and Progress Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership (CPTPP):
● The
CPTPP originally was the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a group promoted by
then-President Barack Obama as part of Washington’s increased emphasis on
relations with Asia.
● However,
the United States has been pulled out of
the treaty themselves from 2017.
● The
CPTPP, which took effect in 2018, includes agreements
on market access, movement of labour and government procurement.
Members:
● Australia,
Canada, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Mexico
and Japan.
● India is not a part of
this agreement.
Features:
● Creating
a free trade area.
● Parties
to give national treatment to the
goods of the other State parties.
● No
party is allowed to increase customs duty on an originating good or adopt any
new customs duty with respect to it and rather, parties have been mandated to eliminate these customs duties.
● If
a good is exported to another Party’s territory for the purpose of repair or
alteration, it has to still be exempted from customs duty.
● The
Agreement prevents any restrictions on
export or import of goods from another Party except as provided under
Article XI of GATT 1994.
·
A Committee on Trade in Goods is to be established consisting of
government representatives from every signatory country. The Committee is to
meet once in a year for the first five years after the Agreement enters into
force.
·
The Agreement provides
for conditions when safeguard measures
can be applied which include global safeguards stated by the GATT and
transitional safeguard measures.
·
It also provides for the
practices relating to antidumping and
countervailing duty.
·
The other provisions relate to financial services, technical barriers
to trade, investment and sanitary and phytosanitary measures.