Taiwan requests CPTPP membership

Beijing, Sep 23 (EFE).- Taiwan officially requested to join the Progressive and Comprehensive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the world’s largest trade agreements, which China asked to join last week.

Taiwanese trade representative John Deng said Thursday at a Taipei press conference that one of the main obstacles Taiwan will have to join the pact is the ban on the import of Japanese products from areas affected by the nuclear disaster of 201, local media said.

Deng said Wednesday that it will also pose “a major obstacle for Taiwan” if Beijing joins the trade bloc first.

According to Deng, the partnership’s member states should review each application “on a case-by-case basis” based on whether they meet the required standards.

“After submitting the application, Taiwan will begin accession talks with the partnership’s 11 members to seek their support and learn about the urgent issues that most concern each of the members,” Deng told public wire service Central News Agency.

China announced Friday it was requesting to join the agreement months after Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country would “actively” consider joining the pact.

The partnership, which came into force in December 2018, is composed of the world’s third largest economy, Japan, as well as Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia and New Zealand, and accounts for about 13 percent of world trade.

The treaty is an updated version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed Feb. 4, 2016, but which entered into crisis after former United States President Donald Trump withdrew his country in 2017.

The original partnership was the target of Trump’s electoral campaign in which he attacked international free trade agreements and insisted on the need to launch new negotiations to renew the pacts Washington had joined. EFE

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