Hanoi to Host TPP Chief Negotiators’ Meeting in September

The next Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Chief Negotiators' Meeting is scheduled to take place in Hanoi from September 1 to 10, 2014.

 

Besides the Vietnamese delegation, more than 400 delegates from 11 member countries will join the TPP negotiations, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and the United States. The Vietnamese delegation is led by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh, who is the head of governmental negotiator delegation in charge of international economics and trade.

 

TPP Agreement is considered a high-profile, comprehensive pact. In addition to traditional issues like liberalisation of trade, service and investment, TPP Agreement will take into account other important issues like intellectual property rights, State enterprises, public procurement, labour and environment. According to statistics, 12 negotiating countries now account for nearly 40 percent of global GDP and one-third of global trade. 

 

So far, 19 rounds of TPP negotiations have been concluded, in couple with many narrow-scaled technical negotiations. Based on the progress achieved at Chief Negotiators’ Meeting in Ottawa, Canada in July 2014, to conclude negotiations in the final stage, TPP countries agreed to open another Chief Negotiators’ Meeting in September 2014 and Vietnam was chosen to be the host.

 

In the upcoming meeting, negotiations will discuss pending issues, including access to the commodity market and related services, intellectual property rights, investment, environment, State-owned enterprise restructuring, regulatory framework and bilateral meetings. The meeting is expected to make a breakthrough in settling differences between member countries, paving the way for an early conclusion of negotiations. The Vietnamese delegation and other countries are striving to prepare to steer the negotiations in that direction.