The Fourth Leaders’ Meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was held on November 15. Ten ASEAN countries, as well as 15 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, officially signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), marking the formal conclusion of the largest free trade agreement in the world. The signing of RCEP is an important step for regional countries to safeguard the multilateral trading system and build an open world economy by taking practical actions, and is of symbolic significance for deepening regional economic integration and stabilizing the global economy.
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The agreement was negotiated for eight years
The agreement was initiated by 10 ASEAN countries, and six dialogue partners including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India were invited to participate in the agreement, aiming to establish a free trade agreement with a unified market of 16 countries by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers.
The negotiations were officially launched in November 2012, involving more than 10 fields, including small and medium-sized enterprises, investment, economic and technical cooperation, and trade in goods and services. On November 4, 2019, the third Leaders’ Meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement issued a joint statement, announcing that the 15 member countries had ended all text negotiations and virtually all market access negotiations, and would start the review of legal texts. India did not join the agreement temporarily because “there are important issues that have not been resolved”.
The largest scale in the world
According to the statistics by 2018, the 15 member countries of the Agreement will cover about 2.3 billion people in the world, accounting for 30% of the global population; The total GDP will exceed 25 trillion US dollars, and the region will become the largest free trade area in the world.
Incorporate various new trade forms
The agreement closely follows the development trend of global trade and incorporates many new forms of trade, including e-commerce. In addition to e-commerce, the agreement also includes intellectual property rights, competition policy, government procurement, small and medium-sized enterprises, which exceeds the scope of WTO provisions.
(Source: CCTV News)