HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) chief negotiators have made important progress across a range of issues as they continue their drive toward a comprehensive agreement after 10 days of intensive meetings last week.

"We are committed to a focused work plan, which will allow us to make continued progress," said Barbara Weisel, US Chief Negotiator for TPP. "All countries involved want to reach a conclusion to unlock the enormous opportunity TPP represents."

Through the TPP, the US is working to establish a trade and investment framework in the Asia-Pacific region that supports US job creation by expanding trade, which accounted for about a third of US economic growth in the past five years.

The US is also taking steps to establish innovative rules that promote core US values in the agreement, such as transparency and good governance and strong and enforceable labour and environmental standards.

During last week's session in Ha Noi, many issues were resolved between the US and its TPP partners – Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Viet Nam.

The teams made important progress on State-owned enterprises, intellectual property, investment, rules of origin, transparency and anti-corruption, and labour.

They also continued to construct ambitious packages for preferential access to each other's markets for goods, services, investment, financial services, and government procurement.

The US and the other 11 TPP countries are committed to resolving the remaining issues as quickly as possible, including both the final text of the agreement and the market-access packages. — VNS