LONDON – Britain will apply to join the Asia-Pacific free trade area, namely the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it said yesterday, under its post-Brexit plans.
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss is to formally request United Kingdom membership of the free trade bloc, which represents 11 Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Vietnam, tomorrow.
The application to join CPTPP comes one year after Britain formally left the European Union following more than 40 years of membership.
Negotiations between the UK and the partnership are expected to start this year, said the Trade Department.
“One year after our departure from the EU, we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“Applying to be the first new country to join CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world, and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade.”
Truss, who has touted the prospect of British membership of the bloc as the UK agreed to post-Brexit trading arrangements with Japan and Canada, among other members of CPTPP, said joining will offer “enormous opportunities”.
“It will mean lower tariffs for car manufacturers and whisky producers, and better access for our brilliant service providers, delivering quality jobs and greater prosperity for people here at home.”
CPTPP was launched in 2019 to remove trade barriers among the 11 nations, representing nearly 500 million consumers, in the Asia-Pacific region, in a bid to counter China’s growing economic influence.
The United States, one of the major proponents of the Pacific bloc under former president Barack Obama, withdrew from the partnership under the Donald Trump administration before it was ratified in 2017. – AFP, January 31, 2021
