Leaders from various Asia-Pacific nations gathering in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia earlier this week formally announced the launch of
negotiations for a 16-country deal which - when completed - would form one of
the world’s largest trade pacts. Separate efforts to initiate talks for a
possible trilateral trade agreement between China, Japan, and South Korea also
moved forward this week, despite earlier concerns that brewing tensions over
disputed islands would stall the initiative.
Regional partnership talks to begin in 2013
At the end of the East Asia Summit on Tuesday, leaders
from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - as well as Australia,
China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea - formally announced that
they would be beginning negotiations next year for a Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The ten ASEAN countries are Brunei, Burma, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The proposed deal, leaders said in their joint
declaration, would be a “modern, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually
beneficial economic partnership agreement establishing an open trade and
investment environment in the region.” Formal negotiations would begin in early
2013, they said, with the goal of finishing the talks by the end of 2015.
According to the RCEP guiding principles and objectives -
which were outlined in August by the participating
countries’ economic ministers - the proposed pact would cover trade in goods
and services, investment, intellectual property, economic and technical
cooperation, and dispute settlement, among other topics.
Plans for the RCEP date back to last November’s ASEAN
Summit, where leaders of the group’s member states adopted the ASEAN Framework
for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Along with the announcement of the RCEP launch this week
came the news that another regional integration effort - the kick-off of the
ASEAN Economic Community, which would serve as a unified market for the ten ASEAN
countries - will be delayed by almost a year, until December 2015, to allow
member economies more time to dismantle remaining trade and investment barriers
and address other outstanding issues.
Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul move forward on launch of
trilateral talks, despite island disputes
The growing tension between Beijing and Tokyo in the
weeks leading up to the summit over a group of contested islands in the East
China Sea - known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan - had recently sparked concerns over how
much the territorial row would affect economic ties between the two regional
powerhouses.
In particular, questions had been raised over whether the
two countries - whose trade relationship is valued at over US$340 billion
annually - would be able to launch, together with South Korea, negotiations for
a trilateral trade pact after having announced their intention to do so earlier
this year. Tokyo and Seoul are also embroiled in a territorial dispute of their
own over a different set of islands.
Despite these maritime issues, however, the three Asian
economies ultimately agreed on Tuesday that they would indeed begin
negotiations for a trilateral trade deal early next year.