New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy says getting a meaningful and comprehensive deal from the Trans Pacific trade talks is more important than rushing to get them wrapped up this year.
Prime Minister John Key, who chaired this week's TPP meeting in Bali, says the negotiations between the 12 participating countries are on track for getting an agreement before the end of the year, but there's still a lot of detailed work to be done in areas such as agriculture.
Agricultural trade envoy Mike Petersen agrees with the Prime Minister that it's the quality of the deal that's important, not when it's signed.
"We don't want a quick and dirty deal, we want a comprehensive deal that's phasing out all tariffs on all products."
Mr Petersen says in New Zealand it's been argued that the country is happy to look at transition measures which may involve phasing out tariffs over time.
He says for each nation there are probably one or two sensitive products that will have to be dealt with at a political level, whether it's dairy in Canada, sugar in the US or rice in Japan.
Mr Petersen says those products won't be dealt with by the negotiators but by politicians.
