What’s new: Indonesia’s participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) took effect Monday, according to the country’s Ministry of Trade. RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement covering about a third of the world’s population and GDP.
With Indonesia aboard, the trade deal has entered into force for 14 of the 15 participating countries, namely China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The Philippines hasn’t ratified the agreement.
The background: The 15 RCEP participants signed on to the agreement in late 2020 after years of negotiation. When the deal took effect in January 2022, it went into force for China and nine other signatories that had ratified it.
The RCEP aims to remove tariffs on at least 90% of goods traded among the countries, and beef up provisions to address nontariff measures, and requirements in areas such as online personal information protection, transparency and paperless trading.
In the first seven months of 2022, China’s trade with other RCEP countries reached 7.21 trillion yuan ($1.05 trillion), a 7.5% year-on-year increase driven mainly by exports, as imports from those countries fell 0.6%, the General Administration of Customs of China announced in October.
Related: Cover Story: Why Southeast Asia Is a Battleground in the Global China-U.S. Rivalry
Contact reporter Zhang Yukun (yukunzhang@caixin.com) and editor Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
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