Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy, Reuters reported. Ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would stretch from Japan to Chile, fell short of a deal at talks last month on the Hawaiian island of Maui, despite early optimism. Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari, in a blog circulated on Tuesday, also questioned why the United States appeared to have lacked its usual "stubborn persistence" at those talks, despite a willingness of some countries to stay to try to reach an agreement. "The reason I stressed ... that we should meet again this month was because each country might lose interest and (the talks) would go adrift," Amari wrote. Amari reiterated that a dispute over intellectual property protection for data used to develop biologic drugs, which Washington insists should be 12 years, and gaps over access to member countries' dairy markets - a key issue for New Zealand - were major sticking points.
