On May 2-12, the 18th round of RCEP negotiations was held in Manila, Philippines. ASEAN, the initiator party of RCEP noted that ASEAN attached much importance to the guidance of the leaders from all sides during the term of Philippines’s rotating presidency term, was full aware of the importance and urgency to end the RCEP negotiations soon and expected positive achievements to be made at the RCEP Ministerial Conference held in Hanoi, Vietnam on May 21-22.

Given the stronger expectation on promoting regional opening-up through RCEP, all sides will make joint efforts to strengthen cooperation and accelerate the RCEP negotiations. This round of negotiations will continue to push ahead talks on trade in goods, trade in service and market access and accelerate the negotiation on the text of rules in IPR, E-commerce and legal mechanism areas. All sides also talked on the preparation for the coming RCEP Ministerial Conference.

The Chinese side will join efforts with all sides to complete the negotiations as soon as possible on the basis of fully respecting the essential position of ASEAN. The 19th round of negotiations will be held in Hyderabad, India on July 18-28.