The fourth round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations opened today in Auckland, New Zealand. Negotiating groups from the United States and its TPP partners -- Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam -- began work on trade in goods, financial services, customs, labor, and intellectual property. They also discussed cross-cutting issues, including how to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises can take advantage of the TPP, promoting greater connectivity and the participation of U.S. firms in Asia-Pacific supply chains and enhancing the coherence of the regulatory systems of the TPP countries to make trade across the region more seamless.
More than 100 stakeholders from five countries traveled to Auckland to provide input directly to the negotiators on a wide range of issues. Today stakeholder presentations were made by representatives of business and NGOs on the development of supply chains, approaches to regulatory coherence, steps to improve access to transparency and access to trade information for SMEs, key issues related to trade in services, and challenges to creating a 21st-century trade agreement.
