If all goes well, the UK will be a full member of this Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) within months, becoming the first European country to join this eclectic club. They have one shared objective: to make trade as easy as possible. Today’s members are Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and Brunei. Britain lifts the fast-expanding group to 16% of global GDP. Several others have either applied or signaled an intent to join, including Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. The Philippines may soon follow.
According to Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, the overriding ethos of the CPTPP is to find ways to make trade flows easier rather than to obstruct them. Self-certification and paperless trade drain the poison from the rules of origin requirements, which bedevil small British firms trying to export to the EU.
The pact’s highly open character could hardly be further removed from the character of the EU, which uses trade as a forcing mechanism for European political integration, and which has ambitions as a regulatory superpower.
Source: fpcfreshtalkdaily.co.uk
