| Obama drives free trade plan to tap into Asia | Send to a friend |
| Tuesday, 16 November 2010 08:14 |
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The group did not include China -- the world's number-two economy and biggest exporter -- which favours negotiating trade reforms in alternative forums that include only Asian economies and not the United States. Obama, in Japan for a wider summit of 21 Pacific Rim economies, is promoting instead the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which had ambitious goals of eliminating almost all trade barriers between members. The US leader, on an Asia tour after bruising mid-term election losses, hailed the benefits of free trade Saturday, saying that "with every one billion dollars we sell in exports, 5,000 jobs are supported at home." The White House said that at Sunday's meeting "the leaders noted that, with the negotiations well underway, TPP is now the most advanced pathway to Asia-Pacific regional economic integration". "They also reiterated their goal of expanding the initial group of countries out in stages to other countries across the region, which represents more than half of global output and over 40 percent of world trade." For now the TPP has just four signed-up countries -- Brunei, Chile, Singapore and New Zealand -- but five others are in talks to join the group: the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. Malaysia joined the process for the first time on Sunday, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan attended as an observer, and South Korea has reportedly indicated interest in joining. Some analysts say it would be difficult for China to join the TPP talks because the United States could use it to pressure Beijing on the value of the yuan, trade imbalances and other issues. In their meeting, Obama, Australian Premier Julia Gillard, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and others welcomed Malaysia into the talks, said the US statement. It said the leaders also hailed Vietnam for completing domestic procedures to enable it to become a full TPP member. "They reaffirmed their objective of negotiating a high-standard agreement and one that addresses new and emerging trade issues and the 21st century challenges their businesses and workers face," said the White House. Obama will host next year's APEC summit in Hawaii, when he hopes to push forward the TPP initiative. Japan, the host of the APEC summit, has deferred a decision on joining TPP by six months amid strong domestic opposition over fears free trade would badly damage the country's highly protected and inefficient farm sector. Kan told the meeting that Japan is "determined to open our country" but that an information-gathering process was necessary first. Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said Japan would benefit from joining TPP but that the government should only act when it has domestic consensus and is fully committed. "Now with America on board, the negotiations since last year have already been very lively and now nine countries are on board," Tay said. "Frankly it's still quite a small raft and America is already a very large person. The last thing we actually need now for the negotiations to be progressive is for Japan to also come on board and sort of wobble, because of agriculture and other issues. "To get them on board -- when they are uncertain -- too quickly would actually ruin the TPP for the rest of us." (AFP) Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
