This meeting was significant as to provide the avenue for Ministers to discuss the way forward on all the outstanding issues. Ministers are expected to table a progress report to the TPP Leaders when they congregate in Bali, Indonesia for the APEC Leaders Summit, 7-8 October 2013.

At the plenary meetings and working dinner on Thursday and Friday, we discussed issues relating to market access on goods, ISDS, cross border services, financial services, temporary entry, government procurement, environment, labour, intellectual property rights and state owned enterprises.

In my interventions, I drew attention to the growing discomfort domestically arising from Malaysia’s participation in the TPP...