CPTPP to open up opportunities for Canada-Vietnam co-operation

Steward Beck, President and CEO of the Asia-Pacific Fund Canada (YouTube)

The signing will be an important starting point for establishing a potential free trade area with a population of nearly 500 million people and GDP of around $10 trillion, or 13 per cent of the global GDP.

According to Steward Beck, President and CEO of the Asia-Pacific Fund Canada, the pact is really important for Canada because it gets access to the Japanese market, Canada’s fourth largest market, as well as well as others like Vietnam, Singapore and ASEAN, which are important markets but the northern American country does not have trade arrangement.

“It is gonna give Vietnam advantages”, he told Vietnam News Agency’s correspondent on the eve of the official signing ceremony. For Canada, “it gives us advantages in place like Vietnam,” he added.

He highlighted Vietnam’s potential with a young labour and half of the population being under 25 and well educated.

Beck pointed out fields the two sides have opportunities for cooperation such as technology, which, he said, will become much more important in doing business today whether e-commerce, finance technology, and services, along with Vietnam’s export of more seafood and other products to Canada.

“In the next two-three years, once the agreement is enforced, we will see more engagements with Vietnam in areas important for Vietnam and Canada.”

He believed more people would go to Vietnam and more people will see what opportunities are it will create that type of business.

Besides, there is a large of Vietnamese community in Canada, they will help because they would know what the business opportunity is in Vietnam. They will be able to make those connections, Beck affirmed.

After the US withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the predecessor of the CPTPP, in 2017, the remaining 11 countries -Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam- agreed to maintain the deal and rename it CPTPP.

It sets high criteria in numerous fields, including labour, the environment, intellectual property, digital economy and cyber security. Twenty-two provisions of the CPTPP, including sensitive ones related to intellectual property, were suspended or changed in comparison to the TPP.

The pact will come into force 60 days after it is fully ratified by six of the 11 members.