Ronnarong Poonpipat, deputy director-general to the department, said that this month the 12th RCEP-Trade Negotiations Committee meeting, to be held in Perth from April 17-29, will wrap up all issues of negotiations before passing the agreement on to the ministers in May during the AseanEconomic Ministers’ (AEM) Retreat in May.

Ronnarong said that the officials should wrap up all discussions on issues and point out the possibilities of finalisation for each topic, as they have been discussed for many rounds.

Issues for discussion include: liberalisation of trade in goods, services, and investment; intellectual property rights; laws; rules of origin; customs procedure; trade facilitation; sanitary and psyto-sanitary standards; technical barriers; electronic commerce; finance; telecommunication; and economic cooperation.

Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn had emphasised during the recent AEM Retreat in Chiang Mai that the economic ministers would like to see the finalisation of the RCEP within this year so as to ensure that Asean is the centre of trading and the key to drive the negotiations.

Previosly, RCEP countries had agreed that they would reduce tariffs on 65 per cent of trade in goods – about 8,000-9,000 goods items – to zero immediately, while tariff for 20 per cent of trade in goods will be reduced to zero within 10 years after implementation of RCEP. Tariff on the remaining 15 per cent of trade in goods will be negotiated in the future, as they are considered sensitive products for each country.

“RCEP will also discuss whether they could cut tariff to 100 per cent of trade in goods or reduce the sensitive lists as much as possible from the present,” he said.