Ukraine has made a formal request to New Zealand, Japan, and Australia to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
New Zealand, which serves as the partnership’s legal depositary, received a formal accession request from Ukraine according to a representative for the New Zealand Foreign Ministry.
The following steps in the application process would be resolved by all CPTPP members, who are scheduled to convene in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 16, according to the spokeswoman.
The CPTPP includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, with Britain becoming the 12th member state. China, Taiwan, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Uruguay all also have requests pending to join.
Japan’s economy minister, Shigeyuki Goto, told a regular press conference that Japan, as a CPTPP member, “must carefully assess whether Ukraine fully meets the high level of the agreement” in terms of market access and rules.
