Douglas Alexander, the UK’s Minister of State for Trade Policy, announced on 29 August 2024 that the UK will be actioning the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) by 15 December. The UK has been negotiating its entry into the partnership, which is an existing free-trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, for the past two years. Once the UK joins, most UK products will qualify for tariff-free trade with partner nations.
Part of the agreement is that Trans-Pacific Partner (TPP) nations must co-operate on regulatory affairs, though are not required to have identical regulations. The potential risks and rewards that may come from differences in regulatory affairs largely depend on which other countries join the partnership in the future. In the meantime, the UK will need to continue its current practice of publishing draft regulations online prior to implementation, to facilitate transparency within the partnership.
In a recent article in The Observer, Jonathan Reynolds, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, wrote that joining the TPP is in no way a sign that the UK is prioritising trade outside the EU. “The EU is not just our closest trading partner – it’s still our largest trading partner by quite some margin.”
Further reading
- Department for Business and Trade and Douglas Alexander ‘UK to join CPTPP by 15 December’.
- BBC, ‘CPTPP: UK agrees to join Asia’s trade club but what is it?’.
