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In the past week, Bantah TPPA has highlighted the falsity of our government's promise that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will benefit Malaysia, and that those involved are misinformed.

As such, we are perplexed by the announcement over the weekend from Australia that the agreement will be concluded by the end of this year.

While our Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak insists on continuing with negotiations to this agreement, WikiLeaks has now shown that the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) has weakened its stance on our ability to source generic medication during times of an epidemic.

In other words, if there is another outbreak of swine flu, A H1N1, H5N, foot, hand and mouth disease or even Japanese encephalitis, our nation will now have to buy patented medication which costs more to treat our population.

Furthermore, Bantah TPPA is also questioning how the negotiating team could have allowed the increased "data exclusivity" clause to be up for discussion. We are now under threat to see biologics - medicine derived from natural sources - having their patents extended for up to 12 years.

We are also perplexed why this government has gone mum about the promise of a cost-benefit analysis report to be made available for the interested public to peruse. Is it because it contradicts the idea of "benefits outweighing the cost", which Najib and his trade minister have constantly told the media?

Bantah TPPA has now highlighted a report by economist Rashmi Banga. We find it tragic that some parties chose to discredit the a senior economist in the Unit of Economic Corporation and Integration among Developing Countries (Unctad), a United Nations organisation, instead of focusing on her work, which summarised that we would experience a negative balance of trade of almost RM5 billion a year.

We’ll lose our competitive edge in trading

This means that Malaysia will be importing more than it exports which creates the possibility of us losing the competitive edge in trading, which will impact local industries and affect employment.

The local sectors that will be seeing an impact include iron and steel, electronics, plastics and even vehicles.

This is a contradiction against every organisation that insists the TPPA would create an open market that will ultimately be a boon for Malaysia.

To some, perhaps this is proof so we can agree that it will not be "very smart" to sign this trade pact.

The Unctad economist also highlights that signing the TPPA would see a steady increase from both the United States and Japan for vehicles, iron and steel and even electrical parts, all of which we are currently trading with China.

Vehicles, of course, would include the importing of rolling stock and locomotives for our public transport projects, including the MRT, the LRT and even KTM Komuter.

While Rashmi's report highlights the losses we will experience in trade, Bantah TPPA wishes to state that we will lose further in intangible costs.

We will lose our sovereignty through government procurement and the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). We will lose access to cheaper medicine for the treatment of rare diseases and cancer, HIV/AIDS and even medications required for periods of an epidemic.

We will even lose our ability to protect the affirmative action for the bumiputera under Article 153 of our Federal Constitution.

These intangible benefits that we have had in this country are all under threat within the secretive negotiations of the TPPA, and it is being done so by our government, which has refused to grant stakeholders a say in how negotiations continue.

As such, it is again time for us to ask this government to come clean and put the negotiations to rest unless it can prove with facts and figures that we will benefit from this agreement.

Bantah TPPA has been challenging this government to put the figures out so we can have a proper debate on the so-called benefits, according to Miti, but instead we are given a repeat slideshow presentation with nothing new.

It is time for both Najib and Miti to wake up to the harsh reality that they have wasted valuable resources and time in negotiating a deal that does not benefit us at all, limits our ability to trade and will insurmountably cause our nation grief for future generations, who will have to bear the increased costs of living due to the signing of this agreement.


NIZAM MAHSHAR is chairperson of Bantah TPPA.

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