China, Australia, Japan and 12 other nations in the Asia-Pacific region have signed a free trade deal worth 30% of the world’s economic output and encompassing more than a quarter of the globe’s population, making it the largest of its kind in history.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was eight years in the making. Members include China, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) whose members are Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei and Cambodia.
The RCEP deal outlines the regulatory framework for the international trade of goods and services between the participants. It includes new rules on electronic commerce and intellectual property. The deal will have a significant effect on the way secondary and tertiary sector goods and services will be traded within the new bloc, according to The Guardian.
A joint statement released by all signatories said the free trade deal would be critical to a pandemic recovery plan. The signatories said RCEP demonstrates each nation’s willingness to support a swift economic recovery and a commitment to job creation, inclusive development, strengthening supply chains and a harmonised trade and investment arrangement.
The deal was supposed to include India and its 1.4 billion inhabitants, but the subcontinental nation pulled out as Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi believed its agricultural and industrial sectors could not be protected adequately.
The RCEP has not ruled out India joining the programme saying it would be welcome to participate in the future.
Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, welcomed the free trade deal saying it would ‘open up new doors’ to Australians, in particular its farmers, businesses and investors. Beijing and Canberra have had a strained relationship in recent years. Murray Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia programme for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said that both nations signing the RCEP means the two are willing to iron out any lingering differences.
Premier of China, Li Keqiang, echoed Morrison’s confidence describing the RCEP deal as a massive win for multilateralism and free trade.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/16/economy/rcep-trade-agreement-intl-hnk/index.html
