Economic leaders from the 16 countries that are participating in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations are banking on coming up with the draft text for the free trade agreement by October and closing the deal by year-end.
The economic ministers said they were encouraged by the progress of the negotiations as they urged the RCEP Trade Negotiating Committee to fast-track talks, issuing the recommendation during the 3rd RCEP Ministerial Meeting held on August 24 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The RCEP discussions have now undergone nine rounds since the launch in November 2012. They involve the 10-member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their six trading partners Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.
The ministers tasked the negotiating team to “intensify its work on tackling the remaining issues and its work in developing the draft texts of the agreed areas of the RCEP agreement” in the lead-up to the 10th Meeting of the RCEP Trade Negotiating Committee scheduled for October 12-16, 2015 in Busan, Korea.
The ministers emphasized that the team “should expedite the negotiations with a view to substantially concluding the negotiations by the end of 2015 with the remaining technical issues to be resolved as soon as possible in 2016.”
They also noted during the meeting that some breakthroughs have been made to settle some key issues, including that substantive market access negotiations are to start soon and that work on draft texts of various chapters has accelerated.
“To meet the vision of achieving a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement, the Ministers were of the view that further work is required for the RCEP Trade Negotiating Committee to come up with a well-crafted, balanced agreement which takes into account individual and diverse circumstances of the RCEP Participating Countries ranging from amongst the most developed to least developed countries in the region,” said an official statement from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia.
The economic performance of RCEP participating countries has stayed strong amidst slow growth in the global economy, it added. RCEP economies’ combined output stood at US$22.7 trillion in 2014, which accounts for about 29.3% of world output.
Trade and investment flows in RCEP economies also remained strong. In 2014, total trade of RCEP economies amounted to $10.8 trillion (28.4% of global trade), while total FDI inflows to RCEP economies reached $366.3 billion (29.8% of global FDI inflows).
Photo: Luk Ma
