Britain will start negotiations to join a free trade area which could grant businesses access to "some of the biggest economies of the present and future", the government has said. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is made up of 11 nations, including Australia, Canada and Japan. Membership would reduce tariffs on exports such as cars and whisky. The trade area covers a market of around 500 million people.
New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are also founder members of the trade agreement, which was established in 2018. The UK applied to join the bloc in January following Brexit. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the trade area was the "part of the world where Britain's greatest opportunities lie".
Being granted membership would be a "glittering post-Brexit prize that I want us to seize", she said.
She said membership would help "farmers, makers and innovators sell to some of the biggest economies of the present and future, but without ceding control over our laws, borders or money".
However, there has already been a political backlash against the UK's recently agreed free trade deal with Australia. UK farmers say imports from Australia could undercut them on price and undermine welfare standards. The UK is the first non-founding country to apply to join the CPTPP and would be its second biggest economy after Japan, if negotiations succeed.
The free trade agreement aims to reduce trade tariffs - a form of border tax - between member countries and includes a promise to eliminate or reduce 95% of charges on traded goods. Liz Truss will start the (virtual) talks to join the 11-strong trans-Pacific trading club. But it is more about strategy than scale. With deals already in place with eight of the CPTPP members, joining may add as little as 0.1% to the size of the UK economy, and it's not clear yet what the UK will have to concede to get the deal, nor how quickly it will happen.
