Pakatan Harapan will only state their stand on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) after the documents are tabled in Parliament for their scrutiny.

DAP national publicity chief Tony Pua said it is unfair for the new coalition to come to a conclusion just yet, as they need to study the balance between the pros and cons of the agreement, concluded by 12 nations on Monday.

"Pakatan Harapan has not established any stand for a very simple reason; we don't have the agreement (in our possession, and) the devil is in the details.

"We have to balance the pros and cons of the details. For example, making GLCs competitive and making prudent decisions is a good thing.

“But the impact on higher medicine prices is not good.

"Before we can come to conclusion (on the TPPA), we must study it first, so we won't be unfair to anyone that would benefit from it," he said at the Pakatan Harapan Amanah Negara fund-raising dinner organised by Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) yesterday.

Yesterday, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed said the government will seek a special parliamentary session if necessary to ensure that the TPPA is tabled on time.

“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 said at a press conference in Putrajaya yesterday.

Two years to ratify

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

The upcoming parliamentary session will last 25 days from Oct 19 until Dec 3, during which next year’s budget will be tabled on Oct 23.

Two cost-and-benefit analyses by Institute of Strategic and International Studies and PricewaterhouseCoopers will also be tabled, and Malaysia has two years to ratify the TPPA after its signing, as its provisions will come into force in 2018.