Trade deal seen promoting greater regional economic integration in the coming years

The member economies of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership have been urged to take practical intergovernmental coordination measures to build advanced investment platforms and supply and service chains to reinforce regional economic integration, experts said on Sunday.

Although the huge free trade deal is expected to deepen regional economic integration by broadening common combined rules of origin in the coming years, it is vital for members to further remove trade-restrictive measures and create more opportunities for companies to invest within the bloc, said Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The RCEP deal came into force at the beginning of this year with the first batch of 10 countries, including six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations－Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam－along with China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

South Korea will enter the partnership on Feb 1, according to a statement released by the ASEAN Secretariat this month.

"In terms of resolving internal issues, RCEP members can learn from the experiences and measures in the early stages of the European Union, such as establishing a fund to help less-developed members better adapt to the new situation as quickly as possible," said Zhao Jinping, former director-general of the department of foreign economic relations at the Development Research Center of the State Council, China's Cabinet, in Beijing.

According to information released by the Ministry of Commerce, the RCEP is expected to eventually eliminate tariffs on as much as 90 percent of goods traded between its signatories, expand market access for investment, harmonize rules and regulations and strengthen supply chains within the free trade zone.

Zhao said high-income countries such as Japan and Australia, along with large emerging market economies like China, Indonesia and Malaysia, could offer inclusive support to low-income economies such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia to help them make various transitional arrangements to stabilize their economies and export businesses and help them adapt to the changes brought by the RCEP.

Herizal Hazri, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies, said policymakers from different countries should introduce flexible measures to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to enjoy more trade facilitation policies and enhance their global competitiveness by the use of new market access commitments and streamlined, modern rules and disciplines that facilitate trade and investment.

Huo Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies in Beijing, said companies in RCEP economies should continue to invest in areas of industrial and supply chain cooperation because the flexible cumulative rules of origin will bring tangible benefits to the logistics and service sectors.

In addition to significantly lowering trade and investment barriers, he said the RCEP will also integrate the industrial, supply and value chains of China, Japan and South Korea thanks to more flexible cumulative rules of origin.

Jiang Ruiping, professor and former vice-president of the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said: "The three economies have been working for a long time to form a free trade bloc. They have come close to their objective through the RCEP. It will create preferential access to each other's markets and help them expand investments, share technologies and promote fresh industrial and supply chains."