Trade ministers from the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nations will be looking to resolve all unresolved issues in the controversial trade pact at this month's meeting in Singapore, New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said Wednesday.

"The key objective of this upcoming meeting is to focus on resolving all outstanding issues with the aim of substantively completing a comprehensive and balanced, regional agreement that achieves the goals leaders established in Honolulu in 2011," Groser said in a statement before leaving for the negotiations.

"The momentum of negotiations is accelerating, evidenced by the work completed by ministers last December in identifying potential landing zones for the majority of key outstanding issues in the negotiations."

The TPP would open goods markets, reduce regulatory barriers, and liberalize services and investment flows, he said.

"This is crucial for New Zealand because international trade and investment underpin our economic performance."

Senior legislators in seven countries last week signed an open letter calling for the TPP text to be released to allow effective legislative scrutiny and public debate before it was signed.

The New Zealand government last week blocked attempts to have the full text of the TPP agreement released to Parliament before it was signed.

Critics claim the TPP agreement would curb national sovereignty on matters such as health and safety and environment regulations.

An academic review earlier this month rebutted the government's claim that New Zealand would see an economic gain of 4.5 billion U. S. dollars by 2025 from the TPP as "doubtful."

Ministers from the 12 Asia-Pacific countries -- Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam -- will hold talks from Feb. 22 to 25. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)