London, United Kingdom:
Britain will apply to join the Pacific no cost trade location, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the UK stated Saturday, below its post-Brexit plans.
Britain’s International Trade Secretary Liz Truss is to formally request UK membership of the no cost trade bloc, which represents 11 Pacific Rim nations which includes Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Vietnam, on Monday.
The application to join the CPTPP will come one year just after Britain formally left the European Union following more than forty years of membership.
Negotiations involving the UK and the partnership are anticipated to begin this year, the trade division stated.
“One year after our departure for the EU we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated.
“Applying to be the first new country to join the CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade,” he added.
Truss, who has touted the prospect of British membership of the bloc as the UK agreed post-Brexit trading arrangements with Japan and Canada amongst other members of the CPTPP, stated joining would present “enormous opportunities”.
“It will mean lower tariffs for car manufacturers and whisky producers, and better access for our brilliant services providers, delivering quality jobs and greater prosperity for people here at home,” she added.
The CPTPP was launched in 2019 to eliminate trade barriers amongst the 11 nations representing almost 500 million customers in the Asia-Pacific area in a bid to counter China’s increasing financial influence.
The United States, one of the big proponents of the Pacific bloc below former president Barack Obama, withdrew from the partnership below the Trump administration ahead of it was ratified in 2017.
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