Malaysia confident of benefiting from CPTPP: Mustapa

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is confident that it will benefit from participation in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), after member countries agreed on four countryspecific issues at its latest meet, which adds on two provisions for suspension under the current agreement according to a Bernama report on a statement released by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

“The Tokyo meeting has agreed to add two more suspensions into the list – making it a total of 22 suspensions. One of them was on the additional flexibilities for Malaysia in the oil and gas sector as described above – after the relentless pursuit and consistent fight put forth by our negotiating team on this matter. Another one was on the market access for Brunei’s coal industry,” International Trade and Industry Minister Seri Datuk Mustapa Mohamed.

The other country-specific issues included state-owned enterprises – namely on Malaysia’s request for additional flexibility to conduct preferential purchases for the upstream oil and gas sector, in which the commitment to limit the transition period would now commence on the date of entry into force, instead of the date of signing as per the previous arrangement.

Mustapa said he would table the outcome of this meeting to the Cabinet for its consideration and resume the engagement process with the relevant stakeholders should the Cabinet decided to grant its approval.

The CPTPP is set to be signed on March 8 in Chile.

Chief negotiators of the 11 CPTPP member countries met in Tokyo for two days starting Jan 22, 2018 as a follow-up from the ministerial meeting that was held in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Nov 10, 2017.

The English text of the agreement has been finalised and it will be released upon the completion and verification of the same text in French and Spanish, expected within the next few weeks.