Farmscape for February 10, 2016

The Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with the Canadian Meat Council says the Trans-Pacific Partnership promises to set the tone for international trade for years and even decades.
Last week representatives of the 12 nations participating in the Tans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, including International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland were in New Zealand to sign the agreement.
Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with the Canadian Meat Council, says the fact that these 12 countries have now come to an agreement, signed the text and can begin the ratification process is very important.

Clip-Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council:
We have always been strong supporters of multilateral trade so we were a strong supporter of the WTO.
Those negotiations have not been fruitful.
The TPP covers 40 percent of the world GDP so this is a step down from the WTO but it is a major step among many countries that represent a big part of the world trade so it sets the future.
It sets a very broad landscape.
It puts in new rules and this agreement is setting out what the rules will be for the coming years or decades.
There is also likely to be adhesions, accessions from countries that are not in it at the moment, important countries that we deal with and I can speak about South Korea, I can speak about Indonesia, I can speak about Taiwan, the Philippines, countries such as those that we look forward to having free trade agreements with in the future through their accession to the TPP so it really does change the landscape for world trade.
There will not be a status quo going forward.
There will be a totally new trading environment when this deal comes into effect and it's much better to in on the ground floor and setting the rules for people coming in later than it is to come in late and have to pay to join the club.

Davidson says this agreement is important for producers, processors, workers and the competiveness of the Canadian agri-food sector moving forward.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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