US, Hong Kong eye trade with Sultanate

BRUNEI has been catching the attention of potential trade partners as a founding member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Oxford Business Group (OBG) said.

In its latest economic update on Brunei that was posted on its website, OBG noted that the Sultanate is now on the radar screen of the US and Hong Kong.

Brunei, along with Chile, Singapore and New Zealand, is a founding member of the trade initiative that has been expanded to include Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and the US.

The nine countries have recently been highly involved in negotiations for a new multilateral free trade agreement (FTA) that could transform the economies of the Asia-Pacific region.

Noting that the TPP is believed to become the US's single-most important trade initiative in the years ahead, the OBG report said: "In this context, Brunei has situated itself well to be an important negotiating and trading partner with the Americans."

The report added that on the sidelines of the opening ceremony last October for a new US Embassy in Bandar Seri Begawan, Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said that "no country has assisted us more as we seek to engage more deeply with ASEAN" than Brunei.

The US, the report stated, has a strong motivation to warm up trade ties with Asian economies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast that the Asia-Pacific economies will grow faster than the world average until at least the end of 2014, and, in 2009, the East-West Centre estimated that Asia accounted for 27 per cent of total US jobs from exports.

The report also noted that the US was not alone in trying to create closer ties with ASEAN, and, by extension, the Sultanate.

"Although it is not directly involved in the TPP negotiations, Hong Kong's attention has also been drawn by the headlines the TPP has been garnering lately," the report said, adding that consequently, the Chinese territory was now looking at creating closer ties with Brunei.

The report quoted Fong Ngai, the director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in Singapore, as saying that "we are here in Brunei now because we want to see more growth between Hong Kong and Brunei, so that is what we are here for to see what opportunities we can facilitate to create the awareness of Hong Kong business people".

The leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries, after announcing in November that an agreement had been achieved on the broad outlines of the TPP, are now aiming to enhance trade and investment among member countries, promote economic growth and development, spur innovation and support job creation.

The TPP is also expected to unite its constituent countries and its future members into a single trading community to foster trans-Pacific growth.

Research done by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APECs) policy support unit predicts that the creation of such an agreement will cover more than US$500 ($650) billion worth of current trade.

"The TPP is also seen as a model for future free trade agreements, which will forge close ties among the member economies, enhance competitiveness, reduce poverty, raise living standards, benefit consumers and support the creation and retention of jobs," the OBG report said.

The partnership is set to tackle issues not covered by past, similar agreements, such as harmonising market regulations, addressing the needs of small and medium-sized businesses as they enter the global marketplace and protecting the environment and workers rights.

During the APEC Summit in Honolulu, where the TPP was broached, US President Barack Obama said that the eight economies would be America's fifth-largest trading partner.

"We already do more than US$200 billion in trade with them every single year, and with nearly 500 million consumers between us, there's so much more that we can do together," Obama said.

The TPP's expansion to include the US, the world's biggest economy, could have important consequences for both US and ASEAN economies.

TPP mini-rounds are being held most recently in Kuala Lumpur in early December, to address market access negotiations on issues such as investment, services, goods, agriculture and textiles, rules of origin and intellectual property rights.

Plans are also under way to hold the 11th round of TPP negotiations in Australia in March, and countries such as Japan, Korea, Canada, Mexico and Indonesia are reported to be interested in participating in the agreement.

"With recent instructions to the negotiators from the TPPs leaders to redouble their efforts to finalise the agreement in 2012, and with July set as an important target date to reach a final agreement, Brunei will be able to take pride in knowing it has been instrumental in the creation of this new trade partnership and eventual new free-trade area," the OBG said. Goh De No

The Brunei Times