No chance for TPP accession this year

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines will have to wait at least another year to get invited to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, as the existing nine member-economies will be using this round of talks to iron out their own issues.

While still optimistic that the country would eventually be invited to join TPP talks, Trade Undersecretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. admitted it was unlikely that such an invitation would come this year.

“It’s difficult now to enter this round of talks, as the existing nine member-economies are already in advanced stages of negotiations,” he said in an interview.

In the meantime, he said informal discussions would continue with TPP member-nations, to ensure that the country would eventually be invited to join the group.

These informal bilateral talks would take place at the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference meetings this month. The country started informal talks with some TPP member-economies at the Apec Summit in Yokohama in November last year.

At the same time, discussions would also be held with various stakeholders, including members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the academe, and the private sector to tell them about the benefits of a TPP accession, as well as the country’s readiness to meet the commitments under the agreement.

The TPP is seen to be the country’s only chance to have a trade pact with the United States, the Philippines’ largest bilateral trading partner, as the US is now more inclined to get into multilateral trade agreements instead of bilateral ones.

The original negotiations for the TPP started with only three countries—Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore—in 2005. Brunei Darussalam eventually joined the talks and became part of the agreement.