On July 22-31, the 27th round of the negotiation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) was held in Zhengzhou, Henan. About 700 representatives from 16 RCEP parties such as the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India participated in the negotiations. When all parties were holding the Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) meeting, they also simultaneously held parallel working group meetings on goods trade, service trade, investment, rules of origin, trade relief, intellectual property rights, e-commerce, laws and mechanisms.

All parties reiterated the goal of the 2nd RCEP Leaders Meeting in 2018 to end the negotiations within the year and promote the negotiation process in accordance with the 2019 work plan and make positive progress in all areas. This round of negotiations has fully prepared for the RCEP ministerial meeting in Beijing on August 2-3, and has promoted all parties to achieve more substantive results at the ministerial meeting.

RCEP covers more than 3.5 billion people, accounting for 47.4% of the world, and its domestic GDP accounts for 32.2% of the world, and foreign trade accounts for 29.1% of the world. It is the free trade zone negotiation which covers the largest population and has the greatest potentiality in the world. Once reached, it will further promote the integration of industry and value chains in the region and inject strong momentum into regional economic integration.