TPP trade pact fate to be decided in May: Malaysia

By P Prem Kumar

KUALA LUMPUR (AA) - Member countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will meet in May to decide the fate of the regional trade pact after the United States opted out, a Malaysian minister said Thursday.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling the country out of the TPP, which included 12 Pacific Rim nations and 40 percent of global trade.

Malaysia's international trade and industry minister told reporters Thursday that a mutual consensus among the 11 remaining member countries can be expected when their trade ministers meet in Vietnam in May on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit 2017.

Mustapa Mohamed underlined that the meeting would decide whether or not the TPP would be continued without the participation of the U.S., which had led negotiations for the pact under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.

"Going ahead with the TPP without the U.S. will involve massive renegotiation, which we are not too keen about... we had utilized enough resources to negotiate the TPP in the last five years," he said in Kuala Lumpur.

"It is going to be tough to move ahead in the case of the TPP. But we can always encourage bilateral free trade agreements between members who don't have bilateral pacts yet."

The 11 remaining TPP member states are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Among them, Malaysia currently has no free trade pacts with Canada, Mexico and Peru.