The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP), also known as P4, is a
trade agreement
A trade agreement (also known as trade pact) is a wide-ranging taxes, tariff and trade treaty that often includes investment guarantees. It exists when two or more countries agree on terms that help them trade with each other. The most common tra ...
between four
Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of
economic policy
''Economic Policy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press, Oxford Academic on behalf of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Center for Economic Studies (University of Munich), and the Paris Scho ...
. The agreement was signed by Brunei, Chile, Singapore and New Zealand in 2005 and entered into force in 2006. It is a comprehensive trade agreement, affecting trade in goods,
rules of origin, trade remedies,
sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy. Among other things, it called for reduction by 90 percent of all
tariff
A tariff or import tax is a duty (tax), duty imposed by a national Government, government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods ...
s between member countries by 1 January 2006, and reduction of all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015.
Earlier agreements
By 2001, New Zealand and Singapore had concluded the
Agreement between New Zealand and Singapore on a Closer Economic Partnership (NZSCEP). The ''Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement'' built on the NZSCEP.
Negotiations
During the 2002
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Meeting in
Los Cabos
LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to:
Science and technology
* Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation
* Level of service (transportation), Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers
* Level of significance, a ...
, Mexico, Prime Ministers
Helen Clark
Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008 and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...
of New Zealand,
Goh Chok Tong of Singapore and Chilean President
Ricardo Lagos began negotiations on the ''Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership'' (P3-CEP).
According to the New Zealand Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
Brunei first took part as a full negotiating party in April 2005 before the fifth, and final round of talks.
Subsequently, the agreement was renamed to TPSEP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership agreement or Pacific-4). Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) were concluded by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore on 3 June 2005,
and entered into force on 28 May 2006 for New Zealand and Singapore, 12 July 2006 for Brunei, and 8 November 2006 for Chile.
Parties
Although the TPSEP agreement contains an accession clause and affirms the members' "commitment to encourage the accession to this Agreement by other economies", no such accession have taken place.
All four countries were involved however in the negotiations for the
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, about which agreement was reached in 2015 involving eight additional parties.
The TPSEP (and the TPP it grew into) are not APEC initiatives. However, the TPP is considered to be a pathfinder for the proposed
Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), an APEC initiative.
See also
*
Trans-Pacific Partnership
*
Pacific Alliance
*
Rules of Origin
*
Market access
In international trade, market access refers to a company's ability to enter a foreign market by selling its goods and services in another country. Market access is not the same as free trade, because market access is normally subject to condition ...
*
Free-trade area
*
Tariffs
References
External links
*
{{Free trade agreements of New Zealand
Trade blocs
Free trade agreements
Treaties of Brunei
Free trade agreements of New Zealand
Free trade agreements of Chile
Trans-Pacific Partnership
Free trade agreements of Singapore
Treaties concluded in 2005
Treaties entered into force in 2006