In Brief

• The Trans Pacific Partnership Ministers will meet in Sydney for three days of negotiations, commencing on 25 October 2014.
• The participants are working towards concluding the basic elements of the agreement by the end of the year.

Summary

A meeting of the 12 Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministers will take place in Sydney on 25-27 October 2014. This will be the 28^th round of discussions, since the negotiations commenced in March 2010.

In Sydney, the Ministers will work to progress negotiations, with a view to concluding the basic elements of the agreement by the end of the year.¹ Outstanding issues are said to include agricultural market access, intellectual property, and the disciplines on state-owned enterprises.

The discussions follow ongoing bilateral negotiations between TPP participants, with the United States announcing ‘constructive working level discussions’ with Japanese counterparts in negotiations over agriculture and auto issues in September.² We discuss these bilateral talks in more detail in our previous article.³

For further background on the TPP, see our previous articles.⁴

End Notes

1. Media Release, ‘Rob to host TPP Trade Ministers’ meeting, 2 October 2014.
2. Readout of Meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Japanese Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Akira Amari.
3. Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations update.
4. The Trans Pacific Partnership.

For further information, please contact:

Leon Chung, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills

[email protected]

Homegrown International Trade Law Firms in Australia