New trade pacts seen to sustain Apec expansion

But the group made no mention of South Korea, Indonesia and other countries that have stated a wish to join.

Mr Turnbull urged legislators in Washington to support the pact.

The TPP members constitute approximately 36 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP) and are the destination for approximately 40 percent of New Zealand’s goods exports (worth NZD20bn in 2014).

In preparation for participation in regional trade blocs, Taiwan concluded economic cooperation agreements with New Zealand and Singapore in 2013, with the highly successful implementation results serving as testaments to the nation’s capability to meet the TPP’s high standards.

The union says it will activate its grassroots network of political activists at 600 union locals across the U.S.to lobby against the trade deal.

Hong Kong, he said, has been ranked as the freest economy in the world – “we’ve been ranked the freest economy in the world for 20 years in a row”.

“TPP is just one of the building blocks we believe are important to achieve a free trade area in Asia Pacific”, Nowell, who is also the founding director of Valadenz Limited, said. The one country in the pacific region not represented is China.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which took power November 4, hasn’t taken a position on the pact it inherited.

Thus, Leung said, “going forward, what I think we need to do is to seriously look at the “hows”, then he cited how the Doha Development Round has not been succcessful”.

“The most attractive thing is that people are starting to see the root causes of the many crises we see today”, Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, organizer with Flush the TPP and Popular Resistance, told teleSUR English.

The Trade Promotion Authority, passed earlier this year, established guidelines for the passage of trade deals like TPP.

She said she is also telling them “that the TPP was not negotiated by our government, it was negotiated by the previous government and our job now is to carefully review the text and consult”. For the United States, it marks President Obama’s pivot to Asia that a few have said is as much about geopolitics as it is about trade.CCTV America’s Jessica Stone reports.

The 5,700-page agreement, authored by the lawyers of multinationals, is predicted to affect every market, though only five of its 29 chapters deal with trade.