DAP's against TPPA if cost of meds to rise
DAP will vote against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) when the matter is tabled in Parliament if it means pricier medicine, vowed the party's secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.
He said the party had wanted to evaluate the proposed trade agreement before passing judgement on it.
“DAP has no choice but to oppose TPPA when it is debated in Parliament (if it means pricer medicine).
“I don't want to give the impression that we would oppose everything the government proposes, simply because we are the Opposition's representatives. We want to be rational, but answer us properly," he said.
"If the price of medicine is going up, what else is going up?” he said in his opening speech at the DAP Youth (Dapsy) national convention in Serdang today.
The TPPA is slated to be debated in Parliament in January next year. The full text of the agreement - numbering over 6,000 pages spanning 30 chapters - was released on Nov 5, after five years of secret negotiations.
Critics of the TPPA had long argued that the agreement would keep generic drugs out of the market for a longer period of time, hence allowing branded drugs to hold a longer monopoly and drive up prices.
Obama said the TPPA provides some protection to drug-makers, but access to low-priced generics for the low-income is also protected.
He said that over time, cost of drugs will go down with the removal of trade barriers.
Malaysia does not impose tariffs on the import of medicines.
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