A Creature Called TPPA…

 With the ensuing hoo-ha over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), it was helpful that an expert on international trade had volunteered to explain about the “creature” at Wisma Bernama today.

In a power-point presentation, Dr Sufian Jusoh started off by outlining the basic structure of international trade and Malaysia’s involvement in various multi-layer trade agreements.

Saying the TPPA was not peculiar to free trade arrangements, he explained about the structure of the agreement, now in its 18^th round of negotiations in Kota Kinabalu.

The senior fellow and associate professor at the Law Faculty of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the external consultant of the World Trade Institute (WTI) said:
“I read in the newspaper yesterday that some people say we should not join now but at a later stage when we are more prepared.

“It doesn’t work that way, once the agreement is completed, you cannot negotiate on it again…you have to accept what the terms are.

“So for us, why do we enter the negotiations… (it’s) because we want to be able to dictate the terms at this point of negotiations.

“Whether you sign or not the agreement is a different issue…the most important thing is to be able to tell the trading partners what we can offer and what we cannot,” he said.

Although there were concerned about the perceived ill-effect of the TPPA, he said the pact could actually benefit the country.

“In a nutshell, I think Malaysia will benefit from the signing of the TPPA,” he said.

First, we will access to a bigger market of 700 million people and secondly, there are issues which we have not discussed before in other agreements and this could be addressed under the TPPA.

So what’s in store for the ordinary people?, he was asked.

“There is a possibility of cheaper product because certain type of imports which used to incur certain tariffs will either be zero-rated or very low, making imports cheaper,” he said.

It would also provide an opportunity for Malaysia to request for technical assistance to upgrade our agriculture produce, for instance, in meeting international standards. 
If this happen, we can assume fishermen such as in Kuala Besut would be ready to export their high quality catch and create demands abroad.