SEOUL, November 27. /TASS/. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a path to a closed market, which does not take into account development peculiarities of various countries in the region, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said on Monday.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not a bad project in its economic essence but it is waning due to its closed nature," Morgulov said speaking at the opening of the eighth annual Asian Conference of the Valdai international discussion club in Seoul.
"This is a path to the closed market, not the open market, the path, which does not grant everyone an equal access to all existing in the region economic opportunities and which does not equally take into account interests and initiatives of all participants," the Russian diplomat said.
The agreement on setting up the TPP was signed in February 2016 after seven years of hard work. The new largest regional area of the free flow of commodities, capitals and technologies was to embrace Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Chile, Japan, and the U.S.
However, after getting to the White House Donald Trump declared the U.S. was pulling out of the format, thus reducing the number of participating countries to eleven.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has criticized the project for a lack of transparency. In November, 2016, he said for effective influence on processes in the global economy no closed unions should be organized, "but if they are still organized, they would not favor development of the global trade, or the global economy."