RCEP

The Regional Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between sixteen countries namely 10 countries of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners (also known as AFP’s or ASEAN FTA Partners) namely Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand.

The RCEP has entered the sixth year of negotiations. During the last five years 24 Rounds of negotiations at the expert level were held – the last Round was held from 18-27 October, 2018 in Auckland; six Ministerial meetings and seven inter-sessional Ministerial meetings were held so far - the 6^th Ministerial meeting held on 30-31 August, 2018 in Singapore and the 7^thinter-sessional Ministerial meeting held on 12-13 November, 2018 in Singapore; and two RCEP Leaders’ Summitswere held. During the 2^nd RCEP Summit on 14 November 2018 in Singapore, Leaders acknowledged the ‘substantial progress’ in the negotiations and reiterated their determination to conclude a modern, comprehensive, high quality, and mutually beneficial RCEP in 2019.