ASEAN members have broad outlines of RCEP negotiating stance — Trade dep’t

THE member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed on “clear parameters” for their negotiating team to use in their talks with free trade agreement (FTA) partners to conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), but a deal remained elusive at the end of their meetings in Manila on Monday.

“We’re not talking here yet of a written agreement,” said Ramon M. Lopez, secretary of the Philippines’ Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and host of this year’s annual ASEAN meeting, in a press conference at Marriott Hotel in Pasay City.

“This can take many years if the participating countries will not change their position on the matters being discussed,” he said, as he presented the “outcomes” of the 49th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting and Related Meetings from Sept. 4-11, 2017.

Since 2012, the 10 ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — have been trying to conclude negotiations on RCEP with their FTA partners Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

If concluded, RCEP is expected to expand ASEAN’s consumer base to nearly half of the world’s population. Their collective weight is said to encompass about a third of the global economy.

But the meetings have only arrived at “broad parameters” and “key elements” that ASEAN ministers are hoping to lead to a “substantial conclusion” by year-end.

“We feel we moved forward in terms of coming up with clear parameters,” he said.

Mr. Lopez said the key elements, which he declined to disclose, would be taken by ASEAN’s FTA partners to their principals for consideration ahead of their submission of offers by the third week of September.

He said another ASEAN negotiating committee meeting will be held in South Korea in October before this year’s ASEAN leaders’ summit in November, which the Philippines is hosting and is coinciding with the 50th founding anniversary of the regional bloc.

Mr. Lopez said that during the Manila meetings, the member states had to “recalibrate” their objectives and “landing zones” to come up with an agreement that is better than the trade deals within ASEAN.

He said the consensus in the region is a level of tariff liberalization of 90%, which member states hope to bring to 92%, a move that has yet to gain wider acceptance from ASEAN’s six FTA partners. He said half of the six were agreeable to the proposed tariff level. He added that the “timetable” for the liberalization has yet to be agreed on.

“Among ASEAN there’s an agreement. Among partners, some of those ... (are somewhat) supportive. They are willing to cooperate with what ASEAN can do right now,” he said.

“( What we are still looking for) is the support and concurrence (of ) all the other countries,” he added.

Mr. Lopez said after the submissions of the FTA partners later this month, there would be an “immediate meeting among the negotiating committee to discuss the offers and hopefully these submissions are within the parameters.” Failing that, he said negotiations would face further delayed.

“(The good thing now is there is) convergence at least among ASEAN plus a few dialogue partners,” he said, adding that this could “pressure” the others to agree on the desired level of trade liberalization.

The ministers from the 16 RCEP participating countries had their 5th ministerial meeting on Sept. 10, 2017 at the Marriott Hotel and noted the “progress” of the talks after the 3rd intersessional ministerial meeting on May 21-22, 2017 in Hanoi, including the holding of the 19th round of negotiations on July 24-28, 2017 in Hyderabad.

They reaffirmed their commitment to further intensify efforts in a cooperative manner for the swift conclusion of the RCEP negotiations in line with their leaders’ mandate, the host country said in a statement after the meetings.—