Uruguay to apply for accession to Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the largest free-trade areas by GDP

Uruguay will apply to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) “in line with its vocation to open up to the world.”

CPTPP is a trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The eleven signatories have combined economies representing 13.4 percent of global gross domestic product, at approximately US$13.5 trillion, making the CPTPP one of the world’s largest free-trade areas by GDP, along with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, the European Single Market, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Speaking at an event organized by the Uruguayan Exporters Association (UEU) on the occasion of Export Day, President Luis Lacalle Pou said that the South American country would seek to join the “CPTTP”, an agreement that he said “has been successful”. “Our vocation is to open ourselves to the world,” he affirmed.

In his speech, Lacalle Pou also stressed the importance of this initiative for possible accession to the agreement, which today has 11 countries and the approval of the entire Uruguayan political system.

“Just as in October 2016 (then) President (Tabaré) Vázquez said he would make an agreement with China, we have taken it up again, and this time we have come to make a feasibility study of what we will initiate,” the head of state said at a press conference.

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