Monday, March 4 and Tuesday, March 5 at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Singapore
The 16th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership talks is underway in Singapore. Negotiating groups meeting on Monday, March 4 were the groups discussing intellectual property, non-conforming measures and cross-border trade in services, rules of origin, and sanitary and phytosanitary issues, as well as chief negotiators from the eleven TPP countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.
Meeting on March 5 will be the same negotiating groups, plus the group discussing legal and institutional issues. Various bilateral meetings are also continuing throughout the week.
Wednesday, March 6 and Thursday, March 7 at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Singapore
On Wednesday, March 6, negotiators from the 11 Trans-Pacific Partnership Countries paused talks to meet with more than 300 global stakeholders at an engagement event hosted by the Government of Singapore. Representatives from academia, labor unions, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations from around the world spoke with and heard from negotiating teams about priorities for and progress on the pending trade agreement. The negotiators also had the opportunity to listen to 60 lecture-style stakeholder presentations.
Following the 3 hour engagement event, the TPP chief negotiators convened a stakeholder briefing session at which they provided updates on the ongoing negotiations and answered questions related to the subject matter of the proposed agreement.
The following negotiating groups met on March 6, at times not in conflict with the stakeholder event: groups discussing non-conforming measures, environment, horizontal issues, intellectual property, legal and institutional issues, rules of origin, and e-commerce, as well as the chief negotiators from the 11 TPP countries. These same groups will meet on Thursday, March 7, as well. Additional bilateral meetings are occurring throughout the week.
Friday, March 8, Saturday March 9, and Sunday March 10 at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Singapore
On Friday, March 8, 2013, the following negotiating groups met in Singapore at the 16th Round of Trans-Pacific Partnership talks: groups discussing non-conforming measures; environment; customs (with textiles); market access (with textiles); rules of origin (with textiles); horizontal issues; and legal and institutional issues.
Meeting on Saturday, March 9 will be groups negotiating market access; temporary entry; intellectual property; environment; customs; labor; and financial services. Meeting on Sunday, March 10 will be groups negotiating market access; investment; financial services; labor; intellectual property rights; customs; technical barriers to trade; and legal and institutional issues.
The chief negotiators from the 11 TPP countries are meeting on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well. Additional bilateral meetings are occurring throughout the Round.
Monday, March 11 and Tuesday, March 12 at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Singapore
On Monday, March 11, 2013, the following negotiating groups met in Singapore at the 16th Round of Trans-Pacific Partnership talks: groups discussing investment; financial services; environment; intellectual property; technical barriers to trade; labor; competition; market access; and legal and institutional issues.
Meeting on Tuesday, March 12, will be the same groups – except intellectual property, and adding government procurement.
The chief negotiators from the 11 TPP countries continue to meet daily; additional bilateral meetings are occurring throughout the Round.
Wednesday, March 13 will be the final full day of the 16th Round. Chief negotiators will hold their customary press briefing for attending media. For those not in attendance, the United States will make available a detailed print statement from Chief Negotiator Barbara Weisel.
TPP Negotiations Shift Into Higher Gear at 16th Round
At the close of the 16th Round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations today, chief negotiators reported that they had achieved the goal set for the round: to put the negotiations on an accelerated track toward conclusion of a next-generation, comprehensive agreement in the 2013 time frame envisioned by President Obama and the Leaders of the ten other TPP countries.
Through the TPP, the United States is seeking to help establish a trade and investment framework that supports U.S. job creation by addressing the issues faced by U.S. stakeholders in the 21st-century, promoting U.S. competitiveness, and expanding U.S. trade in the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. The United States also is seeking to advance core U.S. values in the agreement, such as transparency, labor rights, and environmental protection.
U.S. Chief Negotiator and Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Barbara Weisel reports that building on the consensus the TPP countries have already achieved on a significant number of the issues under negotiation, during this round the 11 delegations intensified their drive to find mutually-acceptable paths forward on the remaining issues in the legal texts of the agreement. As a result of active intersessional engagement, and the pragmatism and flexibility shown by all countries during this round, the delegations succeeded in finding solutions to many issues in a wide range of areas such as customs, telecommunications, investment, services, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property, regulatory coherence, development, and other issues. With this progress, some negotiating groups, including customs, telecommunications, regulatory coherence, and development will not meet again to discuss the legal texts in future rounds and any remaining work in these areas will be taken up in late-stage rounds as the agreement is finalized. This will allow the TPP countries to concentrate their efforts on resolving the most challenging issues that remain, including related to intellectual property, competition, and environment.
The 11 countries also made progress during this round in continuing to develop the comprehensive packages that will provide market access for goods, services and investment, and government procurement. Productive exchanges occurred on tariff packages on industrial goods, agriculture, and textiles, as well as on rules of origin and how best to promote the development of regional supply chains in order to benefit companies based in the United States and the other TPP countries. In addition, negotiators discussed each country’s proposals to open services and investment and government procurement markets. The 11 countries agreed on additional intersessional work to build on market access advances made since the last round, to continue movement toward outcomes consistent with the high level of ambition that Leaders agreed to seek.
On March 6, the TPP negotiations adjourned temporarily so that negotiators could engage with the more than 300 stakeholders from TPP countries who registered to join the stakeholder events in Singapore. In response to stakeholder requests, Singapore arranged both for direct stakeholder engagement with negotiators and for 60 stakeholders to make presentations on a wide variety of issues. Also that day, Weisel and fellow Chief Negotiators briefed stakeholders and took questions on the substance and process of the TPP talks.
In mid-April, TPP Trade Ministers will meet on the margins of the APEC Trade Ministers meeting in Surabaya, Indonesia to discuss progress to date and provide further guidance to negotiators. As the negotiations draw to a close, high-level officials will be more actively engaged with one another on ways to address the remaining sensitive issues.
The 17th round of TPP negotiations will be held in Lima, Peru, from May 15-24.
