Malaysia not ready to sign TPP

SINGAPORE: Malaysia is not ready to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and like its other Asean counterparts should focus on regional integration, a top government official said.

“I don’t want to speak on behalf of the International Trade and Industry Ministry, but as far as I know, we are not ready,” Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low told Malaysian journalists covering the Invest Asean 2014 conference here yesterday.

“I don’t think Malaysia wants to sign for the sake of signing,” Low, who was one of the panel guests at the event, added.

The TPP is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated by Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

The negotiations started in March 2010.

Low opined that the Asean Economic Community, which refers to a single regional common market made of Asean countries targeted for 2015, will come into existence before the TPP is formalised.

“I think some of the other countries are also not ready. There are several sticky issues and we have to make sure that whatever we sign will benefit the people as well,” Low said.

“Priority should be on Asean integration.”

Low said the Asean region should make sure that its markets are integrated so that when investors come to the region, they will not ‘think of us as 10 separate countries’.

“There are many barriers, we have to make sure that we are more seamless.”

However, given that not all Asean countries are on the same economic level, the challenge is to ensure that the countries complemented each other as opposed to competing with each other, he said.

“For example, some of the industries that require intensive labour should go to Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos as we move along.”

To a question on the level of integration that has been achieved thus far within the region, Low said: “We have free trade, we have reduced a lot of tariffs, the issue is we got to eliminate the non-tariff barriers.”

Low emphasised the need for a more integrated regional investment policy so that investors would be treated the same at all times.

“Our (policy) right now is not rule-based, it is more consensus-based. If you are rule-based, then it is very clear for investors.

“Asean must build into that…the heads of states that are responsible for this,” he noted.