Apparently part of my 'twitter duty' is to point out the shortcomings in articles about future UK trade policy, so reporting once again to have a little poke around the case for CPTPP made by an IEA staffer... 1/ cityam.com/265469/going-p…
To begin with the first sentence is welcome, but I'd want to see serious evidence for the second paragraph - is CPTPP better than EU-Japan for the UK - and that matters as there are already EU trade deals with many CPTPP members 2/ 
CPTPP allows us to cumulate origin, which means you qualify for preferential rates not just on your own but with other country produce. Good, but how likely is it that the UK will be significant players in Pacific supply chains? Less likely than being in European ones 3/
To a degree there is content in CPTPP on non-tariff barriers, but it isn't that much, and much is based on potentially quite onerous administrative processes to follow those of the EU. One of many things not mentioned 4/
Again, we'd need to see the detail of the services chapters, but the data elements of CPTPP have been particularly welcomed, so we'll acknowledge that one 5/
The final paragraph that hides huge numbers of problems with joining CPTPP. Essentially there are regulatory incompatibilities between this and the EU single market, and we almost certainly renegotiate if we want to join the CPTPP 6/
My own contribution on CPTPP. It isn't ridiculous to think of joining. But there are clear trade offs, barriers that will come up with the EU if we do, and that will probably cost the UK economically. We need serious analysis which has yet to be done/ end prospectmagazine.co.uk/economics-and-…
