TPP Talk goes live

13 May 2011 by Mark Sinclair

Welcome to TPP Talk. This column will provide up-to-date information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiation from the perspective of the New Zealand negotiating team.

This negotiation currently involves eight countries in addition to New Zealand: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Viet Nam. We are working across a negotiating agenda that is wider than typical free trade agreements. The composition of the group and the shape of the negotiating agenda have generated growing public interest. For example, a recent petition (PDF 19.6KB) presented to Parliament set out some specific requests for TPP-related information.

We will use TPP Talk to update you on developments in the TPP negotiation. We will include links to major pieces of commentary on TPP, including from critics. Where we can fill out the picture by providing commentary ourselves, we will do so. We will set the record straight on points of fact where we can. We will not be able to talk about other countries’ negotiating positions or release negotiating texts, but we certainly aim to provide fuller information on New Zealand’s approach and the reasons behind it.

This will complement what we are already doing to engage with those who have a stake in the negotiation. We sought initial public submissions on TPP at the end of 2008. Since then we have been in contact with interested groups on progress in the early stages of the negotiation. For the negotiating round hosted in Auckland in December 2010, we introduced a stakeholder programme that ran the entire week and attracted 112 registered participants, and which also featured daily briefings for stakeholders and media.

We remain keen to get input from stakeholders as the negotiation moves forward. As the negotiation intensifies, we will face issues on which we need to seek more detailed input from specific groups. We are currently making plans, for example, for a new round of consultations on intellectual property that will build on the detailed discussions with interested groups held in Auckland and Wellington last year. Information on this process will be posted here shortly.

ENDS

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