commitment also contains this requirement: “Foreign interest greater than 49% in an enterprise that provides legal services need to obtain approval from NCFI. Investment approval is subject to reciprocity.” (Source: TPP- Mexico’s Annex I, page 38). However, Malaysia and Singapore’s commitments for life and non-life insurance under the AFAS were improved under the TPP. Malaysia’s commitment under the AFAS limits foreign equity participation to 30 percent for new firms, 51 percent for existing firms, and entry through a branch is not allowed, the TPP commitment keeps the restriction on entry via a branch but lifts the limits on the foreign equity participation. For insurance sector (mode 3), Singapore maintains 49 percent equity limit in acquiring existing firms under the AFAS but this restriction was removed under the TPP.

One of the virtues of the TPP was supposed to be the consolidation of existing bilateral and plurilateral agreements between TPP countries, and the extension of their benefits to all TPP members. Therefore, it is striking that the TPP countries listed a significant reservation to the Most-Favored-Nation Treatment (Articles 9.4 and 10.3) for all cross-border trade in services and investment. For example: “The United States reserves the right to adopt or maintain any measure that accords differential treatment to countries under any bilateral or multilateral international agreement in force or signed prior to the date of entry into force of this Agreement.” (Annex II of the United States, page 11). Virtually identical language is to be found in Annex II of Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Peru and all four ASEAN member countries.

If the TPP commitments were more liberal than those made in earlier agreements, then these reservations would be inconsequential. But that is not the case: in several instances, TPP commitments are more restrictive than those under earlier agreements. Consider, for example, commitments made under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) by Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore commitments on land transport and auxiliary services under AFAS assure partners of no restrictions, but under the TPP, Singapore reserves the right to maintain or adopt any measure affecting the supply of land transport services (Annex II, SGP 28). Similarly, Malaysia’s commitments on auxiliary maritime services under AFAS allow entry subject to a foreign equity limit of 49 percent but under the TPP, Malaysia reserves the right “to adopt or maintain any measure that accords rights, preferences and differential treatment to countries under any international agreement in force or signed after the date of entry into force of this Agreement involving maritime and port services” (Annex II, p7). In maritime transport, Peru listed some restrictions under the TPP such as a nationality requirement in ownership and crew members in international maritime shipping (TPP Annex I of Peru, page 25), but there are no restrictions or reservations in Peru’s PTAs with the US, Canada and Singapore.

# _TPP commitments and the applied policy status quo_

Figure 1 above shows that the TPP commitments improved upon the Doha round offers, but for no country is the average openness implied by TPP commitments greater than that offered by currently applied policies in the sectors we cover. The average commitment score for the TPP member countries was 27.8 while the average applied policy score was 18.6 for 2015 policies, implying that applied policies were about one-third more open than the TPP commitments. The biggest closing of gaps between TPP commitments and applied policy was in the case of Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Canada and Mexico. Their TPP commitments scored much closer to their applied policy score. On the other hand, Singapore, which has the largest gap between its open 10