IN PERU, TALKS RESUME FOR NEW ASIA, AMERICAS, OCEANIA TRADE PACT

Lima, May 16- Another round of talks aimed at reaching an agreement on an enormous new trading bloc linking nations from Asia, the Americas and Oceania officially kicked off Wednesday in Lima.

This round of the talks, the 17th, aims at creating a new regional free trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP.

Talks for the TPP originally included eight nations: the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Since then four more nations--Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan--have sought to be included.

"It will be the most ambitious high-standard agreement of any free trade deal to date," said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president for Asia, Tami Overby.

For some, the TPP is seen as an alternative to the stalled Doha Round of trade-barrier-lowering negotiations that started in 2001 under the auspices of the World Trade Organization.

The new pact also could draw in new members.

"The TPP will have an impact on the nations of the Pacific, attracting countries that are much more open. As the TPP advances, it will become attractive for other nations in the region to join," said Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, a senior analyst with the Eurasia Group.

With the entry of Japan into the talks in April, the nations in the TPP make up nearly 40% of global gross domestic product and about one-third of all world trade.

Trade ministers meeting in Indonesia on the margins of a reunion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, in April said they were aiming to conclude the negotiations "on a 2013 time frame”.

"They (trade ministers) directed negotiators to complete their work on some chapters and to accelerate progress on more challenging issues that remain including intellectual property, competition/State-owned enterprises, and environment, as well as on the market access packages for goods, services/investment, and government procurement," a joint statement said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Ms. Overby said that an October deadline set for reaching a deal might be a bit too ambitious, especially given the entrance of Japan into the talks.

Nongovernmental organization Citizen Watch says the TPP could lead to a loss of jobs in the U.S., remove oversight from the banking sector, decrease access to medicine and allow corporations to attack environmental and health safeguards.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says the TPP "is more than a traditional trade agreement; it will also deal with behind-the-border impediments to trade and investment”.

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