• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.165-193
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• 2016

This paper conducts a comparative analysis of the KORUS FTA and the TPP Agreement to assess the current state of affairs in international trade rules for the pharmaceutical industry. Intellectual property rights as well as public health related regulations have evolved to strengthen the position of innovator drug companies. In particular, the TPP Agreement which adopted data exclusivity for biologics for the first time, will set the standard for the future. Apart from this however, the TPP Agreement has not gone further than the KORUS FTA and in some respects, even contains greater policy flexibilities and provisions for market access than the KORUS FTA. Korea should take advantage of such differences when and if she must engage in negotiations to join the TPP Agreement or a renegotiation of the KORUS FTA.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.309-330
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• 2013

Trans-Pacific Partnership started as a small scale 4 countries regional trade agreement. It became a grand free trade agreement when the United States announced its participation and Japn considers to join. Korea still hasn't decided the stance however, considering the economic and political relationship with the United States and the impact of TPP, it looks like that Korea is going to join TPP. US led the TPP agreement is expected to be made based on the previous FTA agreements of the US. In the promising E-Commerce part, it is likely that the e-commerce leading US would suggest favorable agreement. If Korea joins the TPP, it's necessary to suggest what Korea wants and needs based on the previous KORUS FTA to promote Korean e-commerce for the future.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1271-1276
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• 2018

The CPTPP(Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) is a large-scale free trade agreement(FTA) in the Asia-Pacific region involving 11 remaining countries(Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei) since the withdrawal of the US TPP in January 2017, Although the economic size is smaller than the TPP, the CPTPP has 12.9% of the world GDP and 14.9% of the trade volume, meaning that another mega FTA is born. Local economic experts believe that Vietnam's stable economic growth rate and the CPTPP agreement will have a positive impact on Vietnam's stock market and M&A market in 2018. The experts usually expect it will be come into force in 2018 and not later than 2019. The CPTPP is also very likely to enter into force in 2019 with the aggressive attitude of the member countries, simplifying the entry into force of the agreement.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.185-215
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• 2017

While the future of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is uncertain, TPP did succeed in convincing certain developing countries, which had been reluctant to open its government procurement market in the past, to open their markets. In this paper, we compare the government procurement chapter of TPP with WTO Government Procurement Agreement to see what factors may have convinced these countries to open their government procurement markets. The key factors seem to be an initially very high levels of threshold, coupled with an extended transition period (up to 20 years) to lower the threshold to figures comparable to other countries; and reduction of legal and regulatory burdens dealing with some transparency and procedural requirements. Korea should use these strategies in their future FTA negotiations to try to open foreign government procurement markets. If Korea wants to accede to TPP, it should have very few problems since Korea has similar threshold levels as current TPP members, and legal and regulatory requirements are more strict under GPA, of which Korea is a member.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.279-309
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• 2016

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries whose joint gross domestic products (GDPs) account for 36 percent of world GDP and whose mutual trade accounts for approximately 24 percent of world trade. As for most proposed free trade agreements (FTAs), trade economists have provided ex ante computable general equilibrium (CGE) estimates to predict the trade, employment, and real per capita income effects of this agreement, such as ITC (2016). This paper-intended to complement these studies-examines the potential impacts of TPP beyond such traditional CGE estimates, taking a broader economic, governance, and historical perspective. First, we contrast these traditional CGE trade and welfare estimates that treat all firms within an industry as homogeneous with more recent CGE analyses that allow firms' productivities to be heterogeneous. We show that the latter models' trade predictions are much more consistent with ex post empirical evidence of average trade effects of FTAs. Second, empirical evidence now strongly confirms the existence of FTA "contagion." We review this evidence and show that predictive models of the evolution of FTAs indicate that the TPP should be formed. With China now having formed 12 FTAs and negotiating five new ones (including a sixteen member Asia-Pacific FTA), the United States would likely face considerable trade diversion without the TPP. Third, we examine empirical evidence on the likely further economic growth implications of FTAs by reducing firms' uncertainty over trade relations and trade policies. Fourth, we examine empirical evidence on the additional impact of FTAs on consolidating democratic institutions in countries. The TPP would likely help consolidate some of the less mature democracies. Fifth, we examine empirical evidence on the reductions of conflicts (and enhanced peace) between countries owing to the formations of FTAs. We conclude the paper noting that the potential net benefits to member countries of the proposed TPP extend well beyond the real income gains to households based upon traditional CGE models.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.187-213
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• 2016

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Partnership Agreement introduce "regulatory coherence." Regulatory coherence refers to "the use of good regulatory practices in the process of planning, designing, issuing, implementing and reviewing regulatory measures in order to facilitate achievement of domestic policy objectives, and in efforts across governments to enhance regulatory cooperation in order to further those objectives and promote international trade and investment, economic growth and employment." This paper traces ideas dealing with regulatory reform and regulatory transparency as discussed in OECD, APEC and selected WTO agreements, examines the text of the regulatory coherence chapter of TPP and TTIP, then examines the regulatory reform system of Korea to see whether Korea satisfies the conditions set forth in the regulatory coherence chapter of TPP. The paper concludes that the Korean regulatory reform system mostly satisfies the requirements of the TPP chapter on regulatory coherence, but some additional procedural reforms are needed for laws proposed by National Assemblymen, and regional laws proposed by regional governments. Finally, the paper notes that the Korean government has been mis-translating regulatory coherence as regulatory convergence, which is a separate idea, and the government should correct its error as soon as possible.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.177-215
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• 2018

Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his "America First" trade agenda ignite a second round of interest in mega-free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific. Countries are evaluating alternative trade policy actions in a post-TPP era. Using national real GDP gains estimated by a modified GTAP model to construct "preference ordering" for 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members and their six regional dialogue partners, this paper comes up with several policy-oriented findings. First, when multilateral agreements are not possible, countries are better off with a regional trading agreement than without one. Second, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is likely to have higher beneficial impacts than the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Third, for dual-track countries, implementing both agreements is better than each separately. Fourth, impacts of open regionalism are likely to be higher than those of a closed and reciprocal one. Going forward, this paper argues that countries should adopt a "multi-track, multi-stage" approach to trade policy.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.311-338
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• 2016

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US, declining globalism confronts rising protectionism. This paper models the ratification process as contest between globalism and protectionism, and analyzes the optimal timing for ratification. Based on this framework, various ratification scenarios are analyzed. The paper argues less likelihood for the lame-duck session passage and more likelihood for prolonged and protracted delay, due to changing political dynamics and declining intellectual support for globalism. Hence, the future of Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement may prove different, compared to the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, both of which were renegotiated and ratified eventually. Then, the US would lose the first move advantage. The paper also discusses strategic implications of delayed ratification on the evolution of trading architecture in East Asia.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.343-384
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• 2017

We assess the outcomes for the negotiating parties in the Trans-Pacific Partnership if the remaining eleven parties go ahead with the agreement as negotiated without the United States, as compared to the outcomes under the original twelve-member agreement signed in October 2016. We find that the eleven-party agreement, now renamed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), is a much smaller deal than the twelve-party one, but that some parties do better without the United States in the deal, in particular those in the Western Hemisphere - Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Peru. For the politically relevant medium term, the United States stands to be less well-off outside the TPP than inside. Since provisional deals can be in place for a long time, the results of this study suggest that the eleven parties are better off to implement the CPTPP, leaving aside the controversial governance elements, the implications of which for national interests are unclear and which, in any event, may be substantially affected by parallel bilateral negotiations between individual CPTPP parties and the United States.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.123-129
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• 2020

Intra-industry trade (IIT) has played an important role in international trade of Vietnam as a result of rapid growth of the country. This article investigates the level of IIT between Vietnam and 11 trading partners in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) over the period 2000-2014. Although there have been a large number of empirical researches contributed to the determinants of IIT, most of them only pay attention on developed countries where the trade flows are similar due to similar demand structure and production technology. Until now, there is no study on intra-industry trade between Vietnam and countries in TPP that Vietnam recently signed a trade agreement in early 2016. IIT is measured by the Grubel-Lloyd index. The index shows that the extent of intra-industry trade between Vietnam and the trading countries is not high due to the level of economic development and the market size. The determinants of IIT are examined using a panel regression model. In the empirical analysis, the results indicate that Vietnam's intra-industry trade is positively correlated with country size, while it is negatively correlated with income dissimilarity, the trade openness, and geographical distance. This study contributes to the new theoretical trade theory on the evidence of developing country's IIT.