Wgtn Chamber Welcomes Conclusion To P4

Chamber Welcomes Conclusion Of Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Outcome

The Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce today congratulated the Government on the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement.

“We are delighted to see that New Zealand, Chile and Singapore have negotiated a high quality agreement covering so many services and all goods” said Chamber CEO Charles Finny, “the Chamber is particularly delighted at the services coverage and at the fact that a negative list has been used for the Agreement.”

“While we will need a day or so to digest fully the detail of the agreement it would appear that the agreement expands coverage and improves conditions for our services exporters to Singapore beyond those agreed in our 2000 Closer Economic Partnership, and creates new opportunities and increased certainty for our services exporters in the Chilean market,” said Charles Finny. “Given that Singapore’s tariffs are non- existent, and that Chile’s were both very low, and protecting a product range which is near identical to that which New Zealand produces (in the same season) the P3 negotiation was always going to be about services. It is therefore pleasing to see that the Government’s negotiating team led by Dr David Walker has delivered a high quality services outcome.”

The Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce and New Zealand Chambers of Commerce and Industry had been disappointed by the exclusion of services from the recently negotiated New Zealand-Thailand CEP, and had been concerned that some of our trading partners might seek to hold New Zealand to the Thailand model. “The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership is a much better model for the future, and we hope that the negotiations with China, Malaysia and ASEAN all follow it and deliver negative list based services agreements. 90% of the Chamber’s Wellington members are from the services sector. The services sector contributes 68% of New Zealand’s GDP,” said Charles Finny.

The Chamber also welcomes the fact that the newly announced agreement with Chile and Singapore has comprehensive goods coverage.

“We are delighted also that Brunei has decided to join the partnership. We understand fully, that because Brunei has made the decision to join the Partnership at a late stage that it will require some time to complete negotiations in areas such as services and Government Procurement”, said Charles Finny.

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