Interview with Tan Sri Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria, the secretary general of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)..
KUALA LUMPUR: It’s a bit presumptuous to think that only the United States (US) can be the driver of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and negate the efforts of the other 11 members, says Tan Sri Rebecca Sta Maria.
The former Secretary-General of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said the US was just one nation out of the 12 member nations in the TPPA and now it was up to the rest to meet and discuss the action plan.
“There are others (TPPA nations); are you going negate the efforts of the other 11 countries?” she said to reporters on the sidelines of the 19th Malaysia Strategic Outlook Conference 2017 in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.
Rebecca said it was up to all the leaders of the remaining members to use values that had been drawn to take the TPPA forward and these included rule making and changes in regulatory reform.
“Don’t flush the TPPA out, so much time and effort have gone into this. I don’t think it’s a bad agreement in spite of what people say...it has value,” she stressed.
“Every agreement has a review element and as it is living document, it’s up to these 11 nations to do what is best for global growth,” she said, without pre-empting the decision on who should take the driver’s seat.
“It is a collective effort agreement, let those 11 nations decide,” she added.
Rebecca was one of the panellists at the one-day conference organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, an independent private think tank. - Bernama
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