EU-Japan Trade Talks Continue
EU News 48/2014
Brussels, 31 January 2014
EU and Japanese officials negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between the two economic powerhouses met this week (27-31 January) for the fourth round of negotiations. The two teams focussed on further discussing and explaining each side’s proposals for the text of the future agreement.
Discussions took place in working groups covering a wide range of areas: trade in goods (including market access, general rules, trade defence instruments i.e. anti-dumping, anti-subsidies and bilateral safeguards); technical barriers to trade and non-tariff measures; rules of origin; customs and trade facilitation; animal and plant health and hygiene (so-called sanitary and phytosanitary measures); trade in services; investment; public procurement; intellectual property; competition policy; trade and sustainable development; and dispute settlement. Another group covering 'other issues' discussed general and regulatory cooperation, corporate governance and the business environment, electronic commerce, and animal welfare.
The EU team was headed up by Mauro Petriccione, Director in the European Commission's Directorate General for Trade, the Japanese side being led by Yasumasa Nagamine, Deputy Minister in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
An agreement between the EU and Japan is predicted to boost Europe’s economy by 0.6 to 0.8% of its GDP. It is expected that EU exports to Japan could increase by 32.7%, while Japanese exports to the EU would increase by 23.5%.
The next round of negotiations will take place in end March 2014.
Source and additional information:
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1024
File Photo: Fourth round of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Japan Mauro Petriccione, on the left Date: 27/01/2014 Reference: P-024856/00-07 Location: Brussels - Management Centre Europe (C)EU, 2014 URL