ISDS Case Map
CPTPP
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet will adopt on Nov. 9 a basic policy on free trade, including its stance on a US-backed trans-Pacific free-trade agreement, national policy minister Koichiro Genba said Tuesday.
Takashi Shinohara, senior vice minister for agriculture, strongly denies Japanese media reports that Tokyo has already decided to launch talks with the US and others on entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Mamoru Moteki, president of the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives, told a press conference that government subsidies to farming families alone cannot prompt farmers to accept Japan's participation in the FTA.
Concerns and demands from Japan's closest trade partner, the United States, have complicated Tokyo's increasingly contentious plan to enter negotiations for the creation of an Asia-Pacific free trade zone.
Japan, China, Canada and the Philippines will be briefed on progress in the ongoing talks to expand the four-member Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meetings on 9 November in Yokohama.
The US welcomes Japan’s new interest in joining negotiations on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would require it to tackle tough US agriculture and other concerns, a senior US State Department official said yesterday.
The Japanese government is set to include a reference to Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in its economic partnership agreement guidelines that are soon expected to receive Cabinet approval.
Japan's economics minister said on Friday that Tokyo should join a US-led Asia-Pacific free trade initiative to keep its firms from fleeing abroad, despite a backlash in the ruling party against the proposed deal.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's hopes of joining efforts to create an Asia-Pacific free trade zone has put his administration on a collision course with farmers battling depressed rice prices.
Momentum is building for a US-supported free-trade pact in the Pacific aimed to serve as a counterweight to China's economic influence.
