The 4th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Leaders' Meeting was held on November 15th. Ten ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand formally signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), marking the formal conclusion of the largest free trade agreement in the world. The signing of RCEP is an important step for regional countries to take practical actions to safeguard the multilateral trading system and build an open world economy, which is of symbolic significance for deepening regional economic integration and stabilizing the global economy.

The Agreement has been negotiated for eight years

The Agreement was initiated by 10 ASEAN countries and invited 6 dialogue partners including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India, aiming at establishing a free trade agreement with an unified market of 16 countries by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers. 　　 negotiations were officially launched in November 2012, involving more than 10 fields such as small and medium-sized enterprises, investment, economic and technological cooperation, and trade in goods and services. On November 4, 2019, the leaders' meeting of the third Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership issued a joint statement, announcing that the 15 member countries would end all text negotiations and virtually all market access negotiations, and would start the legal text review. India has not joined the Agreement for the time being because “there are important issues that have not yet been resolved”.

The largest scale in the world

As of the statistics of 2018, the 15 member States of the Agreement will cover about 2.3 billion people worldwide, accounting for 30% of the global population; the total GDP exceeds US$ 25 trillion, and the area covered will become the largest free trade zone in the world.

Incorporate a variety of new trade forms

The Agreement follows the development trend of global trade and incorporates many new trade forms, of which e-commerce is one of them. In addition to e-commerce, the Agreement also includes intellectual property rights, competition policy, government procurement, and small and medium-sized enterprises, which exceeds the scope stipulated by WTO.

Source: People's Daily Client (Reporter Liu Gang), CCTV News

Editors of this issue: Hu Chengyuan; Zhu Tianyi