The government will seek a special parliamentary session if necessary to ensure that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is tabled on time, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed said today.

He said that he is also looking at the first week of the coming parliamentary session to field questions from MPs regarding the controversial free trade agreement.

“We will need to get clarity on the dates. Our understanding is that (it is to be tabled in Parliament) within two months after the document is in the public domain.

“In the event if the document is revealed in early November, then two months would be early January. If that’s the case, it is going to be a special parliamentary session,” he told a press conference in Putrajaya.

This is Mustapa's ( photo ) first press conference since the TPPA negotiations concluded in Atlanta on Monday.

The TPPA is meant to remove or lower trade barriers between the 12 Pacific rim countries involved, which are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam.

Budget comes first

The upcoming parliamentary session will run for 25 days from Oct 19 until Dec 3, while next year’s budget will be tabled on Oct 23 during the same parliamentary session.

Since the upcoming parliamentary session is a budget session, Mustapa said, the Dewan Rakyat would have to pass the budget first, before it can move on to other business.

Hence, the special parliamentary session would be necessary if there isn’t enough time.

He said he has discussed the matter with Minister in Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs, Azalina Othman Said, this morning, and will consult the Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia ( photo ) soon.

The full text of the TPPA, which is the result of five years of secret negotiations, is expected to be made public within 30 days.

Cost-and-benefit analyses

Mustapa said it would be released together with two cost-and-benefit analyses, which would be conducted by Institute of Strategic and International Studies, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Once it is tabled and passed by Parliament, Malaysia would have two years to ratify TPPA, meaning that its provisions could come into force in 2018.

However, Mustapa said some provisions have a transition period before it takes full effect, some of which are as long as 25 years from the date TPPA comes into force.

In the meantime, he said his main task is to engage MPs, GLCs, NGOs, and members of the public on TPPA.

Tomorrow, he said, he will be meeting the bi-partisan parliamentary caucus on TPPA, which is comprised of six BN parliamentarians and five opposition MPs.