Officials push for progress in Asia-Pacific deal
BusinessDay 28/03/2011
Officials push for progress in Asia-Pacific deal
CLAIRE ROGERS
Trade officials are pushing for more action in the latest round of negotiations for a controversial Asia-Pacific free-trade agreement, after making slow progress in previous discussions.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is being negotiated behind closed doors between nine countries, including the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
Critics of the agreement have warned New Zealand will have to toughen its stance on issues such as copyright, patents and drug agency Pharmac – which buys generic drugs and in bulk at the expense of drug companies – in order to get exporters access to the US market.
The sixth round of negotiations began in Singapore on Thursday.
A New Zealand official said the Singapore session had been extended from five to nine days "to get the level of progress we’re looking for".
"We’ll be pushing pretty hard to get maximum progress.
"We’ve got text on the table from most delegations on most issues and we’ve also made an important step forward in that we’re looking at market access proposals in most areas."
Those proposals included initial offers around services and investment access and product-specific rules of origin – which defined which products would qualify for trade concessions, the official said.
New Zealand had also submitted and received requests to improve the original tariff offers tabled by countries in January.
Officials were pushing for common tariff arrangements but it was possible some bilateral elements would need to be negotiated within those, he said.
"We’ll be looking for a level of quality in line with what we achieved in P4 [with Chile, Brunei and Singapore] and other high-quality free-trade agreements we’ve concluded."
Further rounds were scheduled for June, September and October but it was possible extra sessions between rounds would be needed to meet the goal – re-affirmed by US President Barack Obama this month – to have a framework for the agreement in place by the end of the year.
Japan was due to decide whether it will join agreement by June, but Bloomberg reported that decision may be delayed following this month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The official said an inter-agency Japanese delegation had visited New Zealand since the disaster.
"We had a very focused discussion over that period both on substantive policy issues in the TPP and future progress."
Japan, which has strong agricultural protections in place, is the only Asian economy with which New Zealand does not have a free-trade agreement in place or in negotiation.
Opponents of the agreement say leaked US text on intellectual property reveals it is seeking to let rights holders prevent parallel imports, extend patent and copyright terms and reinstate internet account suspension for repeat online copyright infringers.
The Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry has downplayed fears New Zealand’s intellectual property and copyright provisions are at risk, and said it was working to retain a balance between the interests of rights holders and content users.
