TPP-Related Bill Passes Japan Lower House Committee

May 23, 2018

Tokyo- A bill needed to implement a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement passed a Japanese parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

It was adopted at the Cabinet Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, by a majority vote with support mainly from the ruling camp led by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Measures in the bill to amend relevant domestic laws include assistance to livestock farmers seen facing tougher competition from abroad after tariff cuts under the revised TPP.

The new pact, officially called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, was signed by Japan and 10 other countries in March after the United States withdrew from the original TPP last year.

A bill to ratify the 11-member TPP passed the Lower House last week and was sent immediately to the House of Councillors, the upper chamber.

Also on Wednesday, the secretaries-general and Diet affairs chiefs of the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, agreed that they will try to put a work style reform bill to a vote at the Health, Labor and Welfare Committee of the Lower House within the day.

But major opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, submitted a motion to dismiss Shuichi Takatori, chairman of the committee, in an attempt to block the day's voting on the bill.

The ruling camp now plans to vote down the motion in a Lower House plenary meeting Thursday and pass the work style reform bill through the labor committee Friday, so that the bill will be sent to the Upper House by the end of May after a full house approval. Jiji Press