[CTC] TPP Ministers To Meet In May

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE
Silva Says TPP Ministers To Meet In May; Rejects New Biologics Commitments

April 13, 2016 
Peru's outgoing trade minister said Tuesday (April 12) that Trans-Pacific Partnership ministers will meet in Peru on the sidelines of the May 17-18 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade ministerial to provide updates on their domestic approval processes, and signaled that her country is not interested in taking on any new commitments on the exclusivity period for biologic drugs.

The “friendly breakfast” on the sidelines of the APEC meeting will give each TPP country a chance to share its domestic progress on ratification, Peruvian Minister for Foreign Trade and Tourism Magali Silva told Inside U.S. Trade on April 12. She spoke after participating in an event at the Brookings Institution on trade integration in the Americas.

U.S. officials have said that some TPP countries are holding off on their ratification process until it is clearer whether the U.S. Congress will approve the deal. 

TPP supporters are hoping for a U.S. congressional vote in a lame-duck session, but Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said on April 12 that is not probable because the votes are not there.  Ways & Means Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) told Inside U.S. Trade that a decision on advancing TPP by House Republicans is complicated by the fact that they have “some substantial divisions” within their caucus.  

Asked whether the U.S. had discussed with Peru the possibility of taking on additional commitments on biologics exclusivity, Silva said “the idea is that we all agree to do exactly what we signed” in the TPP text. “We already have a commitment and that is the agenda that we all have for the future,” she added.

Some congressional Republicans including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) view the term of market exclusivity for biologics in the TPP agreement as too short, and have pressed the Obama administration for improvements. The efforts to bridge those differences do not seem to have advanced much as of mid-week.  

Ways & Means Republicans have suggested using side letters or implementation plans to address their objections on biologics, while Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said TPPcountries may be open <http://insidetrade.com/node/153431> to clarifying the TPP's biologics obligation in their own domestic implementation legislation.

Silva did not explicitly rule out the latter option, and she noted that each TPP country now must undertake a domestic implementation process.

But she signaled there was little appetite in Peru for going beyond the outcome of the biologics negotiations, which she stressed had been “very difficult” for her country. “And I believe that we have achieved consensus that we're going to leave it there,” she said.

She noted that Peru would have to change its domestic law to comply with the biologics exclusivity obligation in TPP and that her country has a 10-year transition period to do so. “It's a window for which Peru is very thankful and that Peru will utilize,” she said.

Peru's current law provides for five years of data exclusivity for chemical medicines but does not provide any protection for biologics. 

Asked about objections by U.S. lawmakers on biologics during the Brookings event, Silva stressed that the TPP was a balanced outcome where no party got 100 percent of what it wanted. She said politicians should understand that the negotiation is completed and that failure to move forward with the deal would be a loss for all parties.

“It would be a lost cause, after having done so much to this point that we would be all losing what we've gained,” she said. “It's an equal balance, a positive outcome that would help create jobs in this region. If this is not [understood] as it is, who knows what's going to happen.”

Silva said the Peru's executive branch is “in the process of submitting” the final TPP deal to the Congress for a vote on ratification. She said she was hopeful the deal would receive congressional approval both in Peru and the United States. 

Asked after the event when she expected the Peruvian Congress to ratify the TPP, she said that it was not up to her. “We will present it and we will see what happens,” she said.

Silva said during the event that she has transitioned to an interim capacity now that the government of President Ollanta Humala is preparing to step down in July following elections.

Peru held its first round of presidential elections on April 10, where Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a former president, and economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski garnered the most votes but failed to win an outright majority. They will face off in the second round on June 5.

Silva said she was only in Washington for one day to attend the Brookings event and did not plan to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman during her trip.

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160413/7ec5b70c/attachment.htm>