RCEP trade ministers to meet in Philippines in Nov

The Dollar Business Bureau

In order to review the progress in RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) and to iron out the issues that are holding back the negotiations, trade ministers of 16 nations, including India, Japan and China, will be meeting early next month. 

“There is going to be a ministerial meeting early November in the Philippines,” Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in New Delhi.

The minister said that in the last round of discussions, held in China, all the nations talked in detail on investment, goods and services chapters. 

“In RCEP talks, we have gone into more details and are considering the offers made by other nations,” she said. 

There are various issues, such as the recommended single-tier system for tariff relaxation and the matters related to services sector that need intervention at ministerial level. 

RCEP is a mega trade agreement which is aimed at covering investments, goods, services, technical and economic cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights. 

The discussions for the agreement commenced in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) in November 2012. The 16 nations account for more than a quarter of the economy of the world, expected to be beyond $75 trillion. 

India already has Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) group, South Korea and Japan. 

The 16-member RCEP bloc consists of 10 members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners - India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.