TPP ministerial meeting opens in Singapore

A ministerial meeting of the 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) opened in Singapore yesterday morning.

Viet Nam's delegation to the meeting is being headed by Tran Quoc Khanh, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade and head of the Government's negotiation delegation on international trade and economic issues.


Prior to the ministerial meeting, chief negotiators and key experts from the 12 TPP members, namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Viet Nam, met in Ho Chi Minh City from May 12-15. They focused discussions on resolving remaining issues in areas such as goods and services, market access packages, intellectual property, investment, the environment, state-owned enterprises and financial services.

The above issues will be discussed further at plenary and bilateral meetings held within the framework of the May 19-20 ministerial meeting.

While TPP advocates are hoping for an early conclusion to the pact, trade observers said this ministerial meeting would mainly be an opportunity for the countries to assess how much headway had been made by Japan and the US, the two biggest economies in the TPP, in dealing with tariffs on Japanese farm products and US automobiles.