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Grow your business in the Indo-Pacific

Benefit from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)

World map with trajectories from Canada to Asia-Pacific countries where Canadian companies can benefit from CPTPP to grow their businesses
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Are you looking to access millions of new consumers by expanding your business to markets in the Indo-Pacific?

The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) can help get you there! The TCS can help you navigate the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free trade agreement (FTA) that presents businesses like yours with new advantages and excellent opportunities for growth in Indo-Pacific markets.

FTAs are treaties between two or more countries that lower or remove barriers to trade, such as tariffs. They make it easier to do business and may help you compete as an equal with local companies. They can also cover non-tariff barriers to trade, like quotas and border processing delays. Some of Canada's recent FTAs, including CPTPP, can make it easier to invest across borders, protect your intellectual property, or move your highly skilled workers between Canada and FTA partner countries.

Let the TCS help you navigate

Whether you export goods or services, the TCS can help you capitalize on CPTPP and Canada's other FTAs.

Canada's FTAs

Canada currently has 15 ratifiedFootnote 1 FTAs with 51 different countries, including CPTPP. Together, these agreements cover 1.5 billion consumers worldwide.

Whether you sell goods or services or you're seeking to find business partners in your supply chain, Canada's FTAs help grow your business by:

Increasing competitiveness

With lower or no tariffs, it could cost less to take your product or service to a new market than it would for a competitor bringing a similar product or service from another country without an FTA in place.

Providing access to new consumers

FTAs make it easier for you to sell to consumers in other countries, including foreign governments. FTAs can also include preferential rules that can simplify how you set up your foreign operations.

Making foreign markets more transparent and stable

FTAs take some of the guesswork out of exporting by offering Canadian businesses better predictability, protection and transparency in foreign markets. Some recent FTAs also promote progress on meeting global labour, environmental, and responsible business standards and practices.

Removing barriers to trade

FTAs can reduce border-crossing delays to member countries, which gets your product to market more quickly. Some FTAs include commitments that give businesses protection for their investment, an equal opportunity to bid on government contracts, or streamlined access to partner markets to conduct their business activities.

Doing business in Indo-Pacific with CPTPP

CPTPP is a free trade agreement in force between Canada and 10 Indo-Pacific countries:

  • Australia
  • Brunei
  • Chile
  • Japan
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • New-Zealand
  • Peru
  • Singapore
  • Vietnam

Once fully implemented, CPTPP will also include the United Kingdom and will give Canadian companies preferential access to:

  • 540+ million consumers
  • 99% of tariff linesFootnote 2 duty-free

Here are some of the top ways that you can use CPTPP to your advantage

Price your products more competitively: CPTPP provides comprehensive tariff elimination across all sectors. Once fully implemented, 99% of Canadian exports will be duty-free, making them more competitive than those from countries that do not have FTAs with CPTPP countries, including the United States.

Bid on contracts with CPTPP governments: CPTPP creates greater access to government procurement opportunities in member countries, including, for the first time, in Vietnam and Malaysia. A number of bidding opportunities are published online.

Deal with barriers to trade in services: CPTPP offers Canadian service suppliers improved protection, predictability and transparency regarding barriers to trade, including quantitative and discriminatory restrictions on the services you supply, the form of legal entity or joint venture you can use, and the establishment of a representative office or residency requirement in a CPTPP country to do business. In many sectors, you'll operate under the same rules as domestic competitors.

Increase your market presence: CPTPP's temporary entry commitments make it easier for certain skilled businesspeople to do business in countries within the trading bloc. This opens opportunities to make contacts, connect with investors, bid on government contracts and send your personnel to work in partner countries.

Your CPTPP toolkit for the Indo-Pacific

Resources and guides

  • The CPTPP website offers comprehensive information on the agreement, including chapter summaries, success stories and frequently asked questions.
  • How the CPTPP can help your business grow in the Indo-Pacific explains the advantages of the agreement to Canadian companies like yours.
  • The Travel Smart app provides current travel advice and advisories from the Government of Canada.
  • The Canada Tariff Finder lets you quickly and easily find tariff information for products in your target markets.
  • A number of government procurement bidding opportunities are published on the websites of CPTPP member countries that have ratified:

Australia

AusTender

New-Zealand

Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS)

Singapore

GeBIZ

Japan

Mexico

Videos to help you prepare for Indo-Pacific markets

Ready to leverage CPTPP?

Connect with a trade commissioner in the Indo-Pacific

Our network of trade commissioners in the Indo-Pacific can help you prepare for international markets, assess your potential, identify international business contacts, and troubleshoot business challenges to help you achieve your goals.

Need to speak with a trade commissioner? Contact us today.

You can also reach us through the following social media channels:

Access TCS market insights

Market entry strategies should be tailored on a country-by-country basis. Research your target market with the help of the TCS and take your business to the next level.

Access information by country to explore opportunities for your business.

Success stories

Agreement helps seafood company tell its story in the Indo-Pacific region

Ocean Choice International, Dale Oldford, Vice President of Product Management

As an exporter of wild caught seafood from Atlantic Canada, the Indo-Pacific region is an important market for Ocean Choice International Inc. CPTPP has brought new demand as well as greater awareness of the St. John's, NL, company in CPTPP countries.

Ocean Choice International's fishing fleet on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Ocean Choice International's fishing fleet on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"The biggest benefit of the agreement for a company like Ocean Choice, while it's hard to put sales numbers on it, is that it's opened up many more discussions about our products," says Dale Oldford, Vice President of Product Management at Ocean Choice. "Customers are more aware about Canada and especially Canadian seafood."

Oldford says CPTPP's tariff reductions have helped the company in terms of pricing and volumes. "Duties and tariffs are no longer, or at least not as much, a negative part of the conversation," he explains. "By reducing or removing tariffs, Canadian seafood is certainly much more on a level playing field. Or at least a competitive playing field."

Emerging markets in Indo-Pacific region bring promise for Canadian company

Maple Leaf Foods, Cindy Qian, International Sales Manager

Maple Leaf Foods Inc., which is headquartered in Mississauga, ON, traces its roots back more than 100 years, with leading brands of pork, chicken and other products familiar to Canadian families for generations. The company has long had customers for its products in the major countries of Southeast Asia. Now CPTPP is prompting orders from other players in the region, which it's finding with the assistance of the TCS.

Cindi Qian checking ingredients on a Maple Leaf Food Inc. pork package at a local grocery store.
Cindi Qian checking ingredients on a Maple Leaf Food Inc. pork package at a local grocery store.

The quality of Canadian pork has always made it attractive, and CPTPP tariff reductions have the potential to take Canadian pork exports to the next level, says Cindy Qian, International Sales Manager at Maple Leaf Foods. While demand in countries such as Vietnam is not as high compared with larger customers like China or Japan, Maple Leaf is doing its part to fill that demand, with the help of the TCS and CPTPP.

Qian says it's been useful for Maple Leaf to work closely with trade commissioners throughout Southeast Asia. "We know each other quite well; whenever there are issues or questions, we just pick up the phone and call," she says. "And if we have regulation issues with local governments, the TCS can step in to help resolve them."

The Trade Commissioner Service helps Canadian businesses grow by connecting them with its funding and support programs, international opportunities, and its network of trade commissioners in more than 160 cities worldwide. Learn more at Trade Commissioner Service.

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