Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Treaty: State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues for Ministerial Guidance
Today, 29 July 2015, WikiLeaks releases a secret letter from the
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP or TPPA) Ministerial Meeting in
December 2013, along with a comprehensive expert analysis of the
document.
Download the TPP SOE Ministerial Guidance in PDF or read below.
Download the expert analysis on TPP SOE Ministerial Guidance in PDF or read the HTML.
The letter indicates a wide-ranging privatisation and
globalisation strategy within the Agreement which aims to severely
restrict "state-owned enterprises" (SOEs). Even an SOE that exists to
fulfil a public function neglected by the market or which is a natural
monopoly would nevertheless be forced to act "on the basis of commercial
considerations" and would be prohibited from discriminating in favour
of local businesses in purchases and sales. Foreign companies would be
given standing to sue SOEs in domestic courts for perceived departures
from the strictures of the TPP, and countries could even be sued by
other TPP countries, or by private companies from those countries.
Developing countries such as Vietnam, which employs a large number of
SOEs as part of its economic infrastructure, would be affected most.
SOEs continue to fulfil vital public functions in even the most
privatised countries, such as Canada and Australia.
The TPP is the world's largest economic trade
agreement and will, if it comes into force, encompass more than 40 per
cent of the world's GDP. Despite its wide-ranging effects on the global
population, the TPP is currently being negotiated in total secrecy by 12
countries. Few people, even within the negotiating countries'
governments, have access to the full text of the draft agreement, and
the public – who it will affect most – none at all. Large corporations,
however, are able to see portions of the text, generating a powerful
lobby to effect changes on behalf of these groups and bringing
developing countries reduced force, while the public at large gets no
say.
The TPP is part of the TPP-TISA-TTIP mega-treaty
package, which together proposes to encompass more than two-thirds of
global GDP.
