Trade talks on fair competition

The six trading partners are China, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand.

However, there are signs that Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand want to encourage Asean to discuss intellectual property rights and trade competition policy under the RCEP.

Somkiat Triratpan, deputy director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, said last week that the second meeting of the RCEP working committee held recently showed much progress, as all 16 member states have tried earnestly to wrap up the talks by 2015 once the Asean Economic Community is set up.

The meeting agreed to set up a subcommittee to sort out issues such as rules of origin, customs procedures, trade facilitation and non-tariff barriers. The working committee also discussed a pattern for liberalising trade in goods, services and investment, as some countries have proposed extra methods of market opening. New issues such as intellectual property, economic and technical cooperation, dispute settlement and trade competition were brought up and are expected to be discussed in detail in January.