Published 26 November 2024
Despite a long and growing queue of applicants, the process of CPTPP expansion has been painstakingly slow with only one new member after five years of operation. Current members must seize the opportunity to use the agreement as a critical platform for shoring up an increasingly unstable global trade regime. A new framework for accessions that bundles together all aspiring members at the outset would speed up and simplify the process.
CPTPP members – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam – have been steadily implementing existing commitments. Next month, the United Kingdom will become the first member to accede since the CPTPP came into force in late 2018. There are currently seven applications pending with a growing list of countries that have expressed interest in joining.
Members have returned several times to the vexing issue of membership criteria and mechanisms to assess potential candidates. Given the high stakes of entry, with benefits like tariff-free treatment on nearly all goods and almost complete market opening for services and investment between member markets, it is important to ensure that future members uphold the highest standards set by the agreement. In addition, concerns over geopolitics, effective implementation, and practical difficulties of managing a sprawling agreement and enlargement, particularly in the absence of a Secretariat, with full-time dedicated staff, has so far meant that only the UK has successfully completed the accession process.
The CPTPP has a historic opportunity to become the benchmark trade arrangement in the near term as the global trade regime continues to unravel. Members cannot continue with a bespoke, one-at-a-time accession process. The agreement needs to expand with multiple members and do so rapidly. Managing enlargement calls for a radical change in approach: bundling together all potential applicants and starting a collective process of assessing them. While possible members should start discussions together, they will likely not conclude talks at the same time. This, however, is perfectly acceptable, as long as the CPTPP continues with a sensible and timely enlargement process.
Download Joining the CPTPP: A better way to steamline the process by Deborah Elms:
Enlargement is no longer a "nice to have" feature of the CPTPP. For the agreement to continue to deliver benefits to members in an increasingly turbulent world with growing protectionism and fragmentation, it needs to expand to fit as many like-minded members as possible under the tent. This need not mean diluting the quality of commitments. It certainly means thinking creatively about how to speed up the entry process for potential members, writes Head of Trade Policy Deborah Elms.
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Author
Deborah Elms
Dr. Elms is Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was the Executive Director and Founder of the Asian Trade Centre (ATC). She was also President of the Asia Business Trade Association (ABTA) and the Board Director of the Asian Trade Centre Foundation (ATCF).
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