The UK has joined a trade pact with several countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Japan and Australia. The name of this pact – CPTPP – is a mouthful, but it’s a club of more than 500 million people the UK will have greater access to. So what does it mean for businesses and households?
What is the CPTPP? The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a trade agreement between 11 nations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Those founding members signed the Pacific trade pact in March 2018 and between them, they generate 13% of the world’s income. The UK is the first non-founding country to join, and will be the pact’s second biggest economy after Japan. It takes the value of the new grouping to £11 trillion.
At present, membership of the CPTPP is a mainly symbolic win for post-Brexit Britain.