Tag Archives: TPP

Penny Macdonald Many trade negotiators in Indonesia for the famous pre-Bogor APEC meetings were excited about the emerging vision of free trade.  It was hard to believe that everyone was poised to sign on to such an ambitious goal.  In a bar in Jakarta, having somewhat patronisingly congratulated one Senior Official on (finally) joining the consensus, I can still hear …

By Brierley Penn When a panel of business leaders in the US-NZ trade relationship took the stage during the second day of the Pacific Partnership Forum, the key takeaway from their discussion was unquestionable. The TPP must be completed as soon as possible, lest we witness the painfully slow crawl to progress that marked the Doha Round of WTO discussions. …

Last week, the WTO had a chance to haul itself out of the dreary post-Doha doldrums in which it has been languishing for years. Back in the day, with Uruguay Round exuberance echoing around the world, business coalitions and free trade activists would meet to discuss tactics and opportunities to grow the global economy. Now they shake themselves out of …

Watching TPP in 2012 was watching a chess game in slow motion.  It was clear that a lot of thinking was going on, there was much jostling for position and it got a bit personal at times as people seemed to be plotting feverishly to get all the pieces they didn’t like off the board. The somewhat tedious nature of …

Having been involved both directly and on the periphery of many trade negotiations over the past couple of decades, it is always intriguing to ferret around in the background to ascertain who is seeking to influence the process.? Who are the well-funded, ever present lobbyists with distinct commercial positions and a desire to advance their agenda at any cost?? Who …

Chief US Negotiator Barbara Weisel confronted charges that the TPP negotiations are not transparent during Wednesday’s TPP press conference. write my paper “We all have done as much as we can to meet with the stakeholders and this includes not just meetings at the round, but regularly in our own capitals to try to ensure that the agreement we have achieved responds …

Coming into the 15th negotiating round for TPP, attention was focused squarely on the two newest countries to join the negotiations – Canada & Mexico. Chief negotiator for New Zealand David Walker explained “We had two main objectives coming into this round – the first was to ensure the smooth integration of Canada and Mexico into the negotiation. We achieved …

Getting along to the Trans Pacific Partnership stakeholders’ day was rather like being involved in a mad-cap version of speed-dating with less-than-optimal results. There were close on 80 presentations in four separate streams. All these in just over five hours with stakeholders and media zooming off like a giant locust swarm whenever word got out (usually via text) that someone …

Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive of New Zealand’s largest business advocacy group – BusinessNZ, came out strongly in support of TPP at Friday’s stakeholder day. best software for graphic design “For a small economy like NZ, which depends for its economic survival on doing business with the rest of the world, the growth in trade in the APEC region has been …

EMA CEO Kim Campbell says if the TPP deal is?not right, “New Zealand will walk away.” As one of the first nations to embrace bilateral free trade agreements, New Zealand has learnt a number of lessons when it comes to international trade agreements Campbell told the TPP Stakeholders Day. “They must be high quality, they must be fair to all …