A year after leaving the European Union, the UK is now looking to join another trading bloc and will formally submit its application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday.
The UK's trade minister, Liz Truss, said that the country will make its formal request to join the trade pact that is the remnant of the previously U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, signed by the Obama administration with 11 other nations, including Japan, Vietnam, Singapore and Australia as a path-breaking effort to strengthen trade rules.
The Trump administration however abandoned the deal as unfair to the U.S.
But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently sees great symbolism in applying to join the bloc on the date that the first anniversary of the UK exit from the European Union, the world's largest trading bloc.
Johnson said at the weekend that he is fully intent on "forging new partnerships" that will provide "enormous economic benefits" to the country and its people.
Officials said that the review process and the negotiations over the UK's membership are expected to start later in the year.
The trading bloc represents roughly 13% of the global economic output or approximately $13.5 trillion.
Critics of the UK plan to join the trading bloc have argued that membership will likely only bring limited economic benefits to the country given its distance to major members even with the UK as the potential second-largest economy if approved right after Japan.
Japan's minister in charge of negotiations for the bloc, Yasutoshi Nishimura, said that he believes the UK's request to join will be accepted and that the country will help further "expand" the standards of the pact.
