On February 14-19, the 11th round of negotiations of the RCEP was held in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. This round of negotiation consisted of four group sessions: the first conference and trade in goods, service trade, investment, and rules for the country of origin. The conference focused on promoting the market access negotiation and the textual discussion, involving these 3 core fields: goods, service and investment. The conference was guided by the leader’s instruction to strive to conclude the negotiations in 2016. It has preliminarily defined the negotiation plan of 2016. Representatives from China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, the ASEAN ten countries and the ASEAN Secretariat attended this round of negotiations.

The RCEP negotiation was officially launched in May 2013. The members contain 16 parties, including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India and the ten ASEAN countries. The population of the members of the RCEP accounts for 50% of the global population and the GDP, the trade volume and the foreign investment attraction are almost one third of the whole world, It is the largest-scale free trade agreement negotiation in Asia and the free trade area negotiation with the biggest amount of t members and scale and the broadest influence ever participated by China.

It is the first round of negotiation conducted by the RCEP in 2016 and the 12th round of the negotiation will be held in Perth Australia on April 22-29.