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New Zealand welcomes U.S. "countdown" to signing TPP trade deal

Xinhua, November 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The New Zealand government Friday welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement of a 90-day notice to Congress before he can sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

The move came a day after the release of the full 6,000-page text of the deal, which further polarized debate over the 12-nation deal.

"We are now on a 90-day countdown, after which the U.S. will be able to sign the agreement. Soon after this period expires, we expect partner countries will meet to sign the text," New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said in a statement.

"Our own Cabinet will shortly be considering the final negotiated outcome, authorization to sign, and the approval and release of National Interest Analysis (NIA)."

Once the agreement was signed, the government would begin the parliamentary processes of consideration of the NIA, followed by passage of legislation necessary to implement TPP.

However, a leading critic of the deal, Auckland University Law Professor Jane Kelsey, said the TPP was set to become "fodder for the U.S. election cycle" as Feb. 5 next year would be the earliest Obama could sign.

Already both sides of Congress were demanding changes, such as withdrawing the potential exclusion of tobacco policies from the investor-state dispute process, stronger disciplines on so-called currency manipulation, and revisiting the deal on pharmaceuticals, Kelsey said in a statement.

"A new president could well seek to reopen the text, as the Obama administration did with the (South) Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement when he forced (South) Korea to accept a supplementary deal four years after it was first signed," she said.

The New Zealand government claims the TPP would boost the New Zealand economy by least 2.7 billion NZ dollars (1.78 billion U.S. dollars) a year by 2030.

However, critics say it will threaten New Zealand's sovereignty and impinge on the country's ability to buy pharmaceuticals cheaply and legislate on a wide range of public interest issues, such as the environment, health and safety, and industrial relations. Endit