Cptpp May Affect Nation S Sovereignty And Policies

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Gabungan Kedaulatan Negara, a platform of civil society organisations, economists and labour groups would like to respond to the statements made by the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) on Nov 29 and Malaysian Consortium of Mid-Tier Companies (MCMTC) on Dec 4 with regard to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
First, we stress that not being a party to the CPTPP does not mean that it will be “disastrous for the economy” as asserted by FMM or that Malaysia may “reverse out of the global market” as claimed by MCMTC.
It just means that Malaysia’s current economic relations with other countries through the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) multiple agreements and the numerous bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements continue to apply.
The export market share and foreign investments in Malaysia until now are the results of a range of policies and incentives that have nothing to do with the CPTPP-type of agreements.
There are many studies including from the World Bank and US government that link foreign direct investment to a country’s natural and human resources, infrastructure and political stability as major factors.
Secondly, the CPTPP is fundamentally about liberalising economies for multinational corporations and financial firms.
It has its roots in the United States-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), championed by former US president Barack Obama and signed in 2015.
After the Trump administration walked out of the TPP, the remaining 11 countries decided to proceed, and they agreed to temporarily suspend 22 out of more than 1,000 provisions in the TPP and renamed it the CPTPP – which came about in March 2018.
The TPP/CPTPP is highly intrusive into national sovereignty and policy-making on non-trade issues, including investment, government procurement, government-linked companies and affirmative action for bumiputera.
Reform is certainly needed in many of our country’s policies, institutions and practices and we will support the government’s commitments to reform and rebuilding our economy.
However, legally binding instruments such as the CPTPP that are about liberalising national economies and increasing foreign corporate rights are not the tools for that as claimed by some. In fact, the CPTPP will have the opposite effect.
This is because less than a third of the 30 chapters and almost 2,000 pages of the CPTPP deal directly with trade in goods.
The bulk of the agreement targets market access for foreign companies into Malaysia’s government procurement, sets restrictions on state-owned enterprises and puts conditions on capital controls in situations of a financial crisis.
Several chapters such as those on services and investment also impact the state and government policies, laws and regulations which will have to be changed to comply with the CPTPP.
Yes, there are exceptions, limitations and some safeguards that have been negotiated but these are highly insufficient and were obtained from the other 11 negotiating countries as of late 2015 - when the original TPP was concluded.
In 2022, we are living in a very different world, with Covid-19, a war in Ukraine, an impending recession and the US shifting gear to launch a new round of their domestic industrial policies for “America First” and returning their pivot to the Asia-Pacific region in their competition with China.
In essence, turbulent times are ahead, and Malaysia should not have its hands tied to take the bold measures that are urgently needed.
The FMM and MCMTC statements refer to the cost and benefit analysis (CBA) published by the International Trade and Industry Ministry (MITI) on July 25 July.
Let us look at the salient features of that CBA, which was the basis for the ministry to conclude that the CPTPP’s benefits outweigh its costs and the move to ratify this agreement on Sept 29, a few days before Parliament was dissolved.
The terms of reference from the ministry for the CBA focused on 12 manufacturing sectors, as well as the construction and services sectors. It did not include the potential economic impact of the CPTPP on consumers.
The CBA also did not address national strategic interests, such as in the areas of social welfare and security.
Former international trade and industries minister Azmin AliWhat was the methodology of the CBA? The Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model was used that simulates the Malaysian economy for the period 2021 to 2030 to assess the potential impact of the CPTPP on Malaysia. This model is a simulation model and was widely criticised as making assumptions that do not reflect the real world.
The CBA study itself clearly states on page 57 that “by definition, a model is a simplification of the real world. As such the CGE model has several limitations” and “contains assumptions or characteristics that may not entirely represent real-world features”.
On page 15 it says that “the CGE model simulates the Malaysian economy under various CPTPP scenarios, conditional on other global and domestic economic developments as well as inter-sectoral and inter-institutional behavioural trends remaining unchanged over the simulation period” (emphasis added).
How can any Malaysian accept this assumption when the world has shifted so drastically since the TPP in 2015 and even since the CPTPP was signed in March 2018?
The CBA was also conducted with limited data apart from goods tariff data. On page 57 of the study, we see this: “CGE models are constrained by data availability … As such, the estimation for other modelling parameters is based on literature review, theory and to a certain extent, intuition” (emphasis added).
Non-tariff measures or NTMs (e.g. health and safety requirements for food imports, halal certification), were highlighted as difficult to quantify, and so the CBA assumes that all CPTPP countries will reduce these by 50 percent, which in reality may be very different as developed countries often use NTMs to restrict imports from developing countries for their domestic protectionist reasons.
Where actual numbers are available for tariffs that Malaysia agreed to reduce to zero for all products under the CPTPP, the CBA actually found that by 2030 with CPTPP implementation, additional imports into Malaysia will exceed additional exports from other CPTPP countries.
Hazy details
Countries like Japan, Vietnam and Canada reserved tariffs for their sensitive products and did not commit to reducing 100 percent of their products to zero-tariff.
Increased tariff-free imports into Malaysia will displace domestic producers and jobs and CBA acknowledges the Malaysia Steel Association estimates a loss in market share from the CPTPP and there will be increased competition for Malaysian machinery, oil and gas equipment companies.
And this is only part of the story.
Therefore, while the headline conclusion on page 22 of the CBA highlights “trade balance is projected to be USD53.5 billion (RM232 billion) in 2030, and remain in surplus at 8.5 percent of GDP in 2030” the reality is in the two tables on that page that show imports exceeding exports, and a fall in trade surplus compared to Malaysia not ratifying the CPTPP (from 8.9 percent to 8.5percent).
The same table shows that if China and the UK were to join the CPTPP, Malaysia’s trade surplus will fall even more to 7.8 percent of GDP because we will import more from those two countries than we can export.
The FMM statement refers to foreign investors not being able to make investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims for violation of investment contracts with the government or investment authorisations.
This has been temporarily suspended for all CPTPP countries as part of the 22 suspended provisions. However, FMM fails to say that the most commonly used grounds for ISDS claims are in Section A of the CPTPP’s investment chapter that still applies. In fact, ISDS claims related to investment contracts/authorisations are less than six percent of the breaches of international investment agreements found.
The other 94 percent of breaches according to ISDS tribunals are about substantive investor rights like those in Section A of the CPTPP investment chapter.
The ministry’s CBA also downplays the ISDS claims that can be made that threaten not just government policy-making but insults the judiciary because ISDS bypasses the national courts when an investor has grievances.
Worse, the CPTPP increases investor protection beyond what any rule of law would allow. The definition of “investment” and what is covered under the CPTPP are also very broad and beyond Malaysia’s pre-CPTPP.
We provide some examples of new threats in the investment chapter.
There is a “fair and equitable treatment (FET)” requirement and this has been interpreted by some investment tribunals dealing with other agreements as a standstill on laws and regulations, i.e. no new laws or regulations and no changing them if this is adverse to the foreign investor.
This interpretation has been described by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as “nearly impossible to achieve” because all governments make new policies, or because governments need to implement new regulations or change them in response to new external crises such as a pandemic, financial crisis or climate change.
No exceptions could be listed to the CPTPP’s FET provision. According to UNCTAD, out of 284 known cases of CPTPP type of obligation, there were 139 claimed FET violations.
Even though not every case is successful, the threat can chill governments into not taking necessary actions. And when an investor is successful, the cost is huge for a country. There are 15 known ISDS cases with awards of more than US$1 billion (RM4.3 billion) each with interest which can be compounded monthly, for these types of ISDS cases which have not been suspended in the CPTPP.
We note that the ministry’s CBA states on page 36 that “the government may have to prepare and allocate resources to respond to possible ISDS claims”.
CPTPP has an expropriation provision which requires compensation at market value plus interest for government actions which reduce the profits of investors from other CPTPP countries.
International law firms such as Hogan Lovells and Reed Smith have advised investors that expropriation and FET can be used to challenge Covid-19 measures such as price controls, export bans and lockdowns.
The CBA stated that there has only been one case related to Covid-19 measures but since the ministry published that study three more cases have reportedly been threatened against Chile while Peru reversed a Covid-19 measure to avoid an ISDS claim.
The CPTPP prevents Malaysia from capping foreign equity or requiring investors to use local inputs, transfer technology (at affordable prices) or appoint Malaysians as senior managers/directors except in the sectors listed in Malaysia’s CPTPP annexes.
However, even in the sectors where Malaysia has exceptions in its annexes, any caps on foreign equity can still be successfully challenged under FET and expropriation.
This happened to the post-apartheid South African government when it required foreign investors to sell 26 percent of their shares to black South Africans and it was sued under ISDS for US$375 million (RM106 billion) so it settled by removing this requirement.
There are general health and public morals exceptions in the CPTPP taken from WTO language but even if these are successfully defended (at the WTO two out of 48 cases have been successful), a foreign investor can still claim for loss of profits including future profits under FET.
The US, Australian, New Zealand and Chilean governments now oppose ISDS and after a cabinet decision instructing Malaysia not to include ISDS in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) it was removed, yet it is still in force for the CPTPP investment chapter Section A.
We have only highlighted a few of the fundamental problems of the CPTPP and based on our own detailed analysis of the CPTPP provisions and Malaysia’s commitments and safeguards we are alarmed.
More analyses are needed for each level of government – federal, state and local – to truly comprehend the full implications because the CPTPP applies to all.
Need room for policy tweaking
Unilateral liberalisation by a country can be reviewed and reversed when needed, but when it is done under legally binding multilateral and regional agreements this autonomy is drastically reduced and can even be removed.
The CPTPP takes Malaysia from having the freedom to change and reverse course when policies are wrong or need strengthening, to a position where changes that are good for the country but impact the profits of foreign investors can trigger huge compensation claims.
This is the time to safeguard our national sovereignty and policy space, not reduce them. Malaysians cannot accept cost and benefit analyses that are not comprehensive and transparent.
We cannot accept assurances that there is still policy space left when what is needed now, more than ever, is maximum policy space.
Since a new government is now in place, it is vital for it to take a relook at the CPTPP and its implications and the ratification should not have been rushed prior to the dissolution of Parliament and consequently the government.
As such:
The prime minister and his team must understand fully the implications; and
There is a need to take into account the change of circumstances in the external world including an impending recession which has not been taken into account by the CBA, it is only prudent and right for the current government to not have its hands tied in policymaking in the public interest and welfare of the rakyat, and therefore withdraw from the CPTPP urgently.
The CPTPP allows any government to withdraw at any time by giving a six months notice. Hence, it is within the new government's legal rights to do the right thing viz. to withdraw the ratification and to reassess the implications of the CPTPP in light of current national and international circumstances.
We, therefore, reiterate our call to the government to withdraw from the CPTPP and conduct a truly comprehensive and public assessment. - Mkini
Gabungan Kedaulatan Negara is a platform made of civil society organisations, economists and labour groups.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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