On August 5th, the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership was held in Vientiane, Laos. The Ministers of Commerce from 16 sides including the ten countries of ASEA, China, Australia, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand attended the meeting. The Chinese delegation, led by the Minister of Commerce, Gao Hucheng attended the meeting.
The negotiation of RCEP was officially launched off in November, 2012. Its target is to achieve a modern, comprehensive, superior and mutually beneficial agreement of economic friendship. Hopefully, this will be the free trade zone that is the most densely populated, the most expansive and the most active. In 2015, the amount of cargo trade, service trade and external investment to the members of RCEP from China was 1.2 trillion, 162.64 billion and 13 billion dollars respectively, occupying correspondingly 30.8%, 22.8% and 11% of the total amount of China’s cargo trade, service trade and external investment.
Based on the instruction of quicken the work and try to finish the negotiation of RCEP before the end of 2016, the ministers stressed the importance of pushing the negotiation in the coming negotiation of RCEP and trying to reach an agreement of high quality as soon as possible according to RCEP Negotiation Guidelines and Objectives. The ministers also gave strategic and targeted suggestions, especially on the core areas like cargo, service and investment. They urged the member countries to keep participating in the negotiation in a positive and constructive attitude. The ministers reiterated that the leaders from all member countries made the promise of trying to achieve a “modern, comprehensive, superior and mutually beneficial” regional free trade agreement when launching off the negotiation.
In the circumstances that the world economy is universally at risk, RCEP has the potential of becoming the engine of pushing the growth of economy, the ministers reaffirmed the importance of RCEP Agreement to the world economy. The Ministers noticed that even though the global economy was unstable in 2015, the economic performance of the members of RCEP was comparatively stable, the total amount of production was US$22.4 trillion, 30.6% of the world’s total production. The RCEP member countries’ total trade amount reached US$11.9 billion s and attracted US$329.6 billion of foreign investment. The recent enhancing rate of GDP of the RCEP member countries was 30% faster than the world average. Considering the member countries’ potential of improving the economic prospect, promoting the integration of regional economy and improving the living conditions of over half of the world population, the ministers reiterated the promise of trying to finish the negotiation as soon as possible and achieving a high-quality, mutually beneficial and commercially significant pact.
So far these countries have carried out 13 rounds of negotiation, the 14th round of negotiation will be held from August 10th to 19th, 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the 15th round will be held from October 10th to 22th, 2016 in Tianjin, China.
