7th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial Meeting | 10 Sep 2019
Recently, the 7th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial Meeting was held in Bangkok to review developments in the RCEP negotiations.
- The trade deal is being negotiated by the 10-members from ASEAN group with their six free trade pact partners namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.
- Once implemented, it would result in one of the largest free trade bloc accounting for 45% of the world's population, and a combined GDP of about $21.3 trillion and 40% of the world trade.
- About 25 rounds of talks have been concluded so far but the members are yet to finalise the number of goods on which customs duty will be eliminated.
- Issues related Service sector are also to be finalised as India is demanding greater flexibility to promote trade in services among RCEP Countries.