Farmscape for December 15, 2016

The President of Canada Pork International says, in the event the Trans-Pacific Partnership fails, the door could be opened for an alternate multilateral trade agreement that would include China.
In October 2015 the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership announced an agreement in principal however the agreement must be ratified domestically by each of the member nations to move forward.
Greg Giokas, the President of Canada Pork International, says this international agreement has the potential to enable Japan to enact economic policies that have been difficult for Japan on the domestic front.

Clip-Greg Giokas-Canada Pork International:
Japan's economic development is important to all of us.
If Japan succeeds we succeed.
If China succeeds we succeed.
If these countries succeed we succeed.
These trade agreements enable the economic development in these countries that otherwise would not happen.
All of Chinese economic development has been based on adhering to WTO, joining the WTO and adhering to those regulations and opening up their market according to those disciplines.
We've see what that can do so the TPP is very important.
China is not in the TPP.
Japan and many southeast Asian countries are and Australia and New Zealand.
But, if the TPP fails which appears somewhat likely at this stage, what we're starting to see is a concern that this would then bring a halt to some of the progress made on opening up international markets.
We would hope that if the TPP fails that we would be able to negotiate a separate agreement with Japan and they seem interested and willing to do so.
But the Prime Minister of Japan said recently that, if TPP fails, they have to look after their own interests too.
They would be looking for an agreement that would include China.
This is something that we're very interested in as well.

Giokas says China is engaging Canada and would like to negotiate a trade agreement with Canada.
For farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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