Tan: TPPA won't affect the rights of State Govts
Published on: Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: THE proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is not expected to affect the rights and jurisdiction of State governments in Malaysia and the Federal government is doing its best to involve State governments including Sabah in the 'Cleared Advisors', a body to discuss any arising issues in the dialogue process.Deputy Chief Minister cum Industrial Development Minister Datuk Seri Raymond Tan Shu Kiah said the agreement would not affect the State government's rights over land and property under the State list, government revenues on State level and local authorities, and State statutory bodies and its subsidiaries will be exempted from the State-owned enterprises."On the whole, TPPA will not limit the rights of the State to draft new laws under its jurisdiction. For example, Sabah has the right to draw laws with regards to the sale and purchase of lands and also to set conditions for foreign workers.
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"The main objective of TPPA in the Labour Section is to improve the welfare of labours. Whatever liberalisation commitment made by Malaysia will only be limited in the liberalisation of service sector involving professionals and not semi-skilled workers or foreign workers."It is hoped that TPPA will open the opportunity for Malaysian professionals to offer their services in other TPPA partner countries while at the same time, ease the movements of our businessmen into the countries," he said.Tan was replying to questions by Bongawan Assemblyman Datuk Mohamad Alamin and Moyog Assemblyman Terrance Siambun during the Question and Answer session at the State Legislative sitting here, Monday.The TPPA is a multilateral free trade agreement currently being negotiated by 11 countries, led by the United States. Malaysia is one of the parties negotiating in the TPPA. It aims to further liberalise the economies of the Asia-Pacific region. It covers a broad spectrum of areas and has 29 chapters, some areas affect public health, environment and courts system.
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"The 12 countries have a total population of 800 million people producing 40 per cent of the world trade. Its main objective is to provide a duty-free market in four countries which Malaysia has yet to have free trade agreement with namely Canada, Mexico, Peru and the United States," he said.For Sabah, he said, TPPA will provide duty-free market access to other TPP countries for its main exports namely crude oil, CPO, methanol and plywood. Currently, existing import duties for plywood to the US is five per cent whereas for Japan is between six and 10 per cent.
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This, he said, would not only benefit exporters in Sabah, but all Sabah consumers will benefit from an open market in terms of product options and services at very competitive prices.In terms of challenges, Malaysia will be facing competitions due to more competitive import but such impact is expected to be minimal because Malaysia had already practised open market.Under the existing free trade agreement, said Tan, import duties for more than 90 per cent products entering Malaysia have already been exempted whereas import duties for 65 per cent of products labelled under 'Most Favoured Nations' (MDF) rate have also been exempted.Under the TPPA aspiration, Tan added that Malaysia will be expected to adhere to accept higher global standards but assured that such requirement is a reality that needs to be accepted by the country if it wants to get involved in international trading."To alleviate the anxiety of our Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) operators and Bumiputera traders because of perceived increase of competition, the government had taken several steps to solve the problem."First, by asking for longer transition period in the liberalisation process to ensure our SMEs can adapt to the new competition, setting aside some projects for our local SMEs and Bumiputera traders and that government revenues on State and district levels be exempted from TPPA commitment," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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