SINGAPORE—Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez is confident that the world’s largest free trade deal will be forged by 16 negotiating countries next year since they are already 90 to 95 percent done with Market Access on Goods, Investments, and Services.
These chapters are currently the focus of participating countries as they enter the “most critical” stage of the negotiations.
On Tuesday, Lopez said seven out of 18 chapters have been concluded since the negotiations started in 2012.
He has since said that the current round of talks “took a little while” since countries outside Asean have no free trade agreement with each other.
“The other chapters like the Market Access to Goods, Services to Rules of Origin, they are set by now. That is where the negotiations took some time but right now we see the offers, the submissions, the request of each country already in the vicinity of the target range. We are not just declaring it closed but the numbers are already there so we just need to fine-tune next year,” the trade chief told the BusinessMirror on the sidelines of the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summits and Related Summits at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Center.
Lopez said the 90-95 percent completion refers to the progress of the submissions of the countries and meeting up with the within the range of agreed parameters.
“In other words, you are looking at 90 to 92 percent liberalization. The number of sectors and subsectors in the services that are included are almost done,” he said.
In the joint statement issued on Wednesday, the concerned parties said negotiations on goods and services market access and on Investment Reservation Lists have “advanced significantly” with all countries engaging in a series of bilateral and plurilateral negotiations throughout the year.
“There has been a genuine effort by RPCs (RCEP Participating Countries) to progress market access negotiations while recognizing that different RPCs have different sensitivities toward each other. RPCs are within reach of concluding market access negotiations to meet the goals in the Guiding Principles and Objectives for Negotiating the RCEP, but some work is needed to close the remaining gaps,” the statement read.
“Special consideration may need to be given to the fact that not all RPCs have in place bilateral free trade agreements among themselves, without undermining the potential expansion and deepening of regional supply chains among the 16 RPCs.”
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said during the press conference after the closing of the Asean Summit that they would have been delighted if the RCEP deal had been settled under their chairmanship.
“It would have been an extra little feather on our cap. But we understand that political exigencies, we appreciate that a lot of progress has been made and we are very close to the finish line. I think what was committed . . . [that] we will be able to complete the negotiations next year is a strong commitment and I have a reasonable confidence that it will happen,” Lee said.