After eight years of negotiation, 12 members of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) finally concluded the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) in Atlanta, Georgia on 5 October 2015. It was signed on 4 February 2016 in New Zealand. Although President Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of the US from the agreement,1 many rules of the TPP will still survive either directly (if the treaty enters into force for the remaining group of countries) or indirectly (when the TPP or any parts of its contents is adopted as a standard or benchmark to negotiate future trade pacts).2 As one of the largest Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the world, the TPP promotes free trade by removing trade and investment barriers among its members, which include both main suppliers of raw materials and main exporters of manufacturing products. Its members include, on the one hand, well-developed markets like Canada and Japan, and on the other hand, fast-growing emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. In addition, there is high degree of complementarity among TPP members, which include countries which are well-endowed in natural resources like Australia, Brunei and Chile, countries with abundant cheap labour like Malaysia, Vietnam and Mexico, countries with rich capital for investment like Singapore, and countries which are known for innovation and technology prowess like Japan. Such economic complementarity provides the perfect match for economic development within the TPP.