Lee orders renewed discussions on possible membership to CPTPP
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a cabinet meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. Yonhap
President Lee Jae Myung instructed the government Tuesday to start over discussions on whether South Korea should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) amid opposition from farmers and fishermen.
Lee gave the order during the closed-door portion of a Cabinet meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, referring to the major Indo-Pacific trade agreement comprising 12 countries, including Japan, Mexico, Australia, Canada and Vietnam. Together, the member countries accounted for about 15.2 percent of global trade in 2019.
"President Lee said there are opinions that the CPTPP's strategic value is important at a time of profound change in the international trade order, as well as opinions that the farming and fishing industries have great concerns," presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a written briefing.
"He stressed that policies should be pursued by calculating the national interest based on trust and shared understanding among farmers and fishermen, and ordered starting over conversations from scratch without rushing toward a fixed conclusion," she said.
According to a government projection released last month, the country's gross domestic product is estimated to grow by 0.38 percentage point over 10 years following its potential entry into the CPTPP, while production in the manufacturing sector is expected to increase by up to 6.7 trillion won ($4.99 billion) per year for 15 years following its membership.
Production in the agricultural and fisheries sectors, however, is projected to decline by approximately 850 billion won annually.