Chief negotiators from the 11 remaining signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement started their three-day talks near Tokyo on October 30 to seek an agreement next week on the implementation of the pact without the US.
They gathered in Urayasu city in Chiba prefecture, seeking to make progress on reaching a consensus on which clauses to suspend implementing until the US returns to the deal.
While the negotiators aim to reach a deal after rounds of talks on the sidelines of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam in November, concern has emerged since new Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern suggested her administration should seek to renegotiate the pact.
Host country Japan wants to make minimal changes to the pact to keep its "high-level standard”.
Currently, there have been requests to freeze implementation of 50 clauses, centering on those introduced at the request of the US, a Japanese negotiation source said.
The TPP was signed in February 2016 by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam, covering around 40 percent of the global economy before the US’s withdrawal earlier this year.-VNA
TPP negotiators meet in Japan
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