Australia's Trade Minister has said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), alongside free trade agreements such as the one signed with China, will form the cornerstone of Australia's post-mining boom economy, after details of the TPP were released overnight.
The agreement, which would remove up to 98 percent of all tariffs between the 12 participating nations, was released to the public on Thursday evening, and Robb told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Friday that it was an opportunity for those interested to "satisfy themselves" by looking through the agreement.
He said the deal still had to be approved by the twelve governments, from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam, but was confident there would be no issues, hinting that it could be enacted as early as next year.
"As always with these wide-ranging and comprehensive agreements, twelve countries have to ratify the agreement," Robb said on Friday.
"This text has been released in record time, in order to give people the opportunities to pour through it and satisfy themselves.
"Then we will sign it, and then it will go back to all of the other countries, possibly as early as next year, to be ratified."
Robb said alongside Australia's recently-signed free trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea, the TPP would "contribute substantially" to the post-mining boom economy.
"Along with the landmark North Asian bilateral trade agreements we have concluded with China, Japan and South Korea, the TPP forms a transformational series of agreements that will contribute substantially to the diversification of our economy in this critical post mining boom phase," he said in a statement.
Robb said years of careful negotiations had led to the best deal for Australia, which now has greater freedom to export commodities such as sugar, beef, dairy and rice, as well as a number of services and materials.
"This has been negotiated over many years. We were aware from day one the major areas of sensitivity. We have spent hundreds of hours of these areas," Robb told the ABC.
"I'm very confident that we have protected (the issues) that were a great concern to groups within the Australian community."
However, Robb had to talk down concerns from environmental groups that there was not enough consideration given to climate change, he said the environmental "experts" could not get their heads around the nature of the trade-based deal.
"This is not a climate change policy, it's not an agreement to do with climate change... it's a trade agreement that looks at trade issues," Robb told the ABC.
"I was a bit disappointed that 6,000 pages hit the table and people were ringing media within 20 minutes giving 'expert advice' when they would have had no time to study the document."
The document was released after the final round of negotiations concluded in the United States last month.
The deal is reportedly expected to represent up to 40 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) once enacted.
