Bid to finalise RCEP gathers steam
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ASEAN and six partner countries will announce a trade initiative called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (RCEP) during the Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur at the end of next week after member states put the finishing touches on the plan, which
Under the RCEP agreement, which will combine 10 Asean countries and China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, those countries will accelerate the reduction of tariffs for trade in goods between them within next year.
Sunanta Kangvalkulkij, deputy director-general to the Trade Negotiations Department, said the respective trade ministers would meet at the 27th Asean Summit to finalise the RCEP.
The Asean Summit will be held in the Malaysian capital on November 19-22.
“This summit will facilitate the agreement by Asean and six partners to achieving integration in 16 markets. This will ensure that the RCEP will help compensate losses for member states following the completion of the US-led TPP pact. The RCEP should be enforced before the TPP so that it will help ensure regional growth,” Sunanta said. Leaders from the 16 countries are expected to announce the initiative in a joint statement on the last day of the summit.
Primarily, the RCEP countries have agreed to cut tariffs to zero for 65 per cent of trade in goods or about 8,000-9,000 items among the participating nations. Also, it will gradually reduce tariffs for the remaining 20 per cent of trade in goods in 10 years. The remainder will be categorised as sensitive goods, the tariffs for which will gradually be brought down to 5-10 per cent in the next step.
