Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (SEP), also known as the P4 agreement, is a multilateral free trade agreement between the countries of Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore which was signed on 3 June 2005 and came into force on 28 May 2006. On September 2008, the United States announced it was entering negotiations to join the group.

The Trans-Pacific SEP was previously known as the Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership (P3-CEP) with its negotiations first launched at the 2002 APEC Leaders Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and Prime Ministers Goh Chok Tong of Singapore and Helen Clark of New Zealand. Brunei first took part as a full negotiating party in the fifth round of talks in April 2005.

Despite cultural and geographical differences, the four member countries share certain similar attributes: all are relatively small countries (no more than 16m habitants) and are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

The aim of the agreement is to eliminate 90 percent of all tariffs between member countries by 1 January 2006 and reduce all trade tariffs to zero by 2015. It is a comprehensive agreement covering all the mainstays of an FTA, including trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy.

The agreement has the potential to grow to include other nations as the agreement includes an accession clause. This was particularly apparent from the fact that negotiations originally included just three countries (Chile, New Zealand and Singapore) and that Brunei was subsequently included into the agreement. New Zealand's Associate Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton has indicated that some economies of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have shown interest in it. Further evidence of the agreement's potential occurred in February 2008, when the United States agreed to enter into talks with the P4 members over opening trade in financial services cite web| url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10491556|title=First step to wider free trade|publisher=New Zealand Herald |accessdate=2008-02-09] and in September 2008, the United States announced it had decided to enter negotiations into joining the group. [cite news|url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10533623|title=US trade move big news for NZ: Clark|first=Paula|last=Oliver|publisher=The New Zealand Herald|date=23 September 2008]

On September 23, 2008, an official announcement was made from Washington D.C. that the United States was to begin negotiations with the P-4 countries ASAP, with the first round of talks scheduled for March 2009 with New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stating "I think the value to New Zealand of the United States coming into a transpacific agreement as a partner would be of the same value as we would hope to get from a bilateral FTA. . . It's very, very big news." Although the outcome of the FTA could become largely dependent on the results of the 2008 United States Presidential election as it is believed the Democratic Party are less friendly towards free trade than their Republican counterparts, despite this, Helen Clark said "I believe that to Democrats, New Zealand offers very few problems because we are very keen on environment and labour agreements as part of an overall approach to an FTA". [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10533623&pnum=0] [http://www.stuff.co.nz/4701726a6160.html]

See also

*Economy of New Zealand
*Economy of Chile
*Economy of Singapore
*Economy of Brunei

External links

* [http://www.mfat.govt.nz/tradeagreements/transpacepa/pdfs/main-agreement.pdf Text of agreement]
* [http://www.mfat.govt.nz/tradeagreements/transpacepa/transpacsepindex.html New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade]
* [http://app.fta.gov.sg/asp/fta/ftapage.asp?id=8 Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry]

Notes and references