New round of TPP talks begin in Japan

Tokyo, Oct 30 (IANS) The 11 member-countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Monday started a new round of negotiations in Japan, seeking to reach an agreement ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next month.

The meeting, taking place in Chiba prefecture, will continue till Wednesday with the aim of re-arranging various types of consensus following the withdrawal of the US, reports Efe news.

Japan has called for the limitation of the changes should Washington decide to return to the negotiating table.

New Zealand has pushed for the talks to move forward, with the newly-elected Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, calling for a revision of the agreement.

Ardern had assured that she would not sign a new agreement if it did not guarantee the viability of the country's national policy against foreign investment in the real estate sector.

The member countries hope that the text of the new agreement will be presented at the two-day APEC summit in Vietnam on November 11, but request for further revisions might delay negotiations.

Washington's withdrawal has led other members to raise more than 50 amendments to the clauses introduced by the US in the original text.

The TPP, an ambitious free trade agreement, sought to encompass 40 per cent of the global GDP and was originally signed in February 2016 by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.

The agreement, which had been negotiated for more than six years, had to be ratified within a period of two years by at least six member countries whose combined GDP represented 85 per cent of the total, but after the US exit - which alone accounts for 60 per cent of the GDP of the 12 signatory states - it had become invalidated.

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