TPP Negotiators Report Additional Progress

According to a Nov. 25 press release by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, chief negotiators for the 12 countries negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement reported “significant progress” after six days of intensive meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah. The USTR notes that negotiators resolved a number of outstanding issues in the areas of intellectual property rights, cross-border trade in services, temporary entry, environment, market access, state-owned enterprises, investment, financial services, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, government procurement, labor, e-commerce, legal issues, technical barriers to trade, and rules of origin. The progress achieved at the Salt Lake City meeting has reportedly “significantly narrowed” the number of issues that the TPP ministers will have to directly address at their Dec. 7-9 meeting in Singapore. Negotiators are expected to remain engaged in the coming days “to further set the stage for a productive meeting” in December...

This has been excerpted from 25 November 2013 article by Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg LLP, and is available in its entirety at http://www.strtrade.com/news-publications-TPP-negotiations-footwear-112613.html.