The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which currently has 11 members and also includes Japan and Australia, has an agreement to include Britain.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the move is the biggest trade deal since Brexit.
“Joining the CPTPP trade bloc puts the UK at the centre of a dynamic and growing group of Pacific economies,” Sunak said in a statement, adding the deal demonstrated “the real economic benefits of our post-Brexit freedoms.”
Japan’s economy minister Shigeyuki Goto described Britain’s joining the pact as “a great significance” in further promoting free trade, open and competitive markets as well as economic integration beyond the Pacific Rim.
Japan chaired negotiations for Britain joining the pact.
Following its exit from the EU in 2020, Britain has sought to strengthen global trade ties by focusing on geographically distant but rapidly growing economies.
It is deepening its ties in the Indo-Pacific as its foreign policy framework casts China as an “epoch-defining challenge”.
Other members of CPTPP are Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Britain is the first new member to join the group.
Japan has asked the U.S. to return to the trans-Pacific trade pact after Washington in 2017 formally withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the predecessor to the CPTPP.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said it was “desirable” for the U.S. to rejoin the trade pact and Tokyo would persist in pressing Washington to become a member.
Membership will supplement existing bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) Britain has with most of the member countries, and gives businesses extra options over the terms they can trade under.
Britain said the deal, which will cut tariffs on cars, spirits and dairy products, would boost the economy by 1.8 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) each year in the long run – a figure that could rise as more countries join the pact.
Britain has agreed on new post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand and agreed on an FTA with Japan in 2020. It is also in talks with Canada and Mexico over new FTAs after it rolled over previous EU trade deals at the end of 2020.
