UK Starts Formal Negotiations To Join Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement - Government

UK Starts Formal Negotiations to Join Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement - Government

The United Kingdom will start formal negotiations on Tuesday to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as part of its post-Brexit strategy to secure free trade deals with different countries, the British government said in a statement

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd June, 2021) The United Kingdom will start formal negotiations on Tuesday to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as part of its post-Brexit strategy to secure free trade deals with different countries, the British government said in a statement.

UK International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Japan's minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, current chair of the CPTPP, are scheduled to confer by video.

Ahead of the talks, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that "membership of the CPTTP free-trade partnership would open up unparalleled opportunities for British businesses and consumers in the fast-growing Indo-Pacific."

According to Johnson, it would also be "an exciting opportunity to build on this country's entrepreneurial spirit and free trading history to bring economic benefits across the whole of the UK."

The CPTTP is a free trade agreement which lowered tariffs and other trade barriers on a wide range of products among eleven countries in Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The agreement went into effect on December 30, 2018, when its first six parties ratified the deal. Initially, the trade deal was expected to cover 40% of the global economy but failed to achieve this, as the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2017.

Currently made up of Japan, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Peru, Brunei, Chile and Malaysia, the partnership accounts for 13% of the global Gross Domestic Product.