ISDS Case Map
CPTPP
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
The APEC summit in Yokohama was a key event by any standard. For many Japanese, however, one issue overshadowed all the rest, and it didn't even take center stage: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, discussed by leaders of nine of the countries on the summit's sidelines.
The Japanese government said Friday it will set up a task force to discuss agricultural reforms as it seeks out more free-trade agreements with other economies.
The backlash from the Japanese farming lobby against the TPP is already looking savage and it seems safe to predict that this will prove to be the case elsewhere in Asia as negotiations on the TPP push on apace.
The Harper government is eyeing a new Asia-Pacific economic block — the Trans-Pacific Partnership — and may be willing to negotiate aspects of Canada's supply management system for certain farm products in order to get in.
Japan's agriculture industry is in the spotlight as a result of the government's interest in a US-backed trans-Pacific free-trade agreement that could scrap high tariffs on heavily protected products such as rice.
Hundreds of people staged a rally Saturday in central Yokohama to voice their opposition to Japan and other Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum members taking steps to accelerate "unprincipled" trade liberalization, saying the measures would destroy people's livelihoods and devastate farmers.
Academics, unions and consumers groups in Australia, New Zealand and United States have strongly criticised the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade arrangement.
On Wednesday 10 November a group of academics, media and politicos gathered at Victoria University's Rutherford House to launch a remarkable book about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The complete audio from the launch is contained in this report.
“We think we are not ready yet because the agreement is very hard for the local industry,” Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said
The US is pushing to complete trade talks with nine Asia-Pacific countries by late next year that lays the groundwork for a bigger agreement that includes China, Trade Representative Ron Kirk said.
