Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Dr Alan Bollard
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Free trade
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Overseas trade
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Trans-Pacific Partnership
Negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership are proceeding, and could be completed by as early as the end of May; the Herald reports:
It is possible a Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal will be thrashed out by the end of the month, says Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) executive director Alan Bollard.
Trade officials are busy ahead of a meeting of Apec trade ministers in Qingdao, China on May 18 and 19.
Among them are the trade ministers of the 12 countries negotiating a TPP agreement. "They have pencilled in going to Singapore immediately after that for a TPP meeting but I think they will only do that if they think they can get a sign-off," Bollard, the former Reserve Bank governor who now heads the Apec secretariat, said on Thursday.
The Apec economies account for nearly half of world output and more than half of global trade.
There have been calls from a number of parties for the Government to release the text of negotiations to date. That shows a basic naivety on the part of those making the calls. Negotiations are conducted in confidence, and any party to the TPP which breached that confidence would quickly find that they were no longer a party to the TPP!
Instead, it will be up to each of the countries involved to go through their own process of ratification, as Dr Bollard explains:
"What I see is the possibility that something gets initialled late May — I just don't know if they will make it — and at that stage it is all out on the table," he said. "Then the politics will get quite interesting because we can then pore over the text and the interest groups start coming in.
Every country has to ratify one way or another, which would take a year.
"And that could be quite a busy, noisy year."
That is entirely the proper way to advance New Zealand's position with regard to the TPP. Legislation will be introduced to Parliament, and go through the full parliamentary process including being referred to a select committee for public and interest group input. Once legislation has been introduced, we will all know what is covered by the TPP, and what, if any concessions need to be considered.
We reckon that it is far better for something as important to New Zealand's future as the TPP to undergo full scrutiny by Parliament, not be debated in an ill-informed way in the media. We are already seeing the benefits to New Zealand of the China FTA, and the TPP has the potential to multiply those benefits further. For a small economy such as ours, that has huge significance.
