Ronnarong Phoolpipat, deputy director-general to the Trade Negotiations Department, and chief Thai negotiator for RCEP, said Asean and the six partner countries would wrap up the talks before the next Asean Summit, which will be held in Thailand in October 2017. “It was agreed to postpone the goal to finalise the RCEP talks to next year because of disagreement in the modality of tariff reduction on trade in goods, liberalisation of services, and investment framework. However, every country has set a new plan to wrap up the talks within next year,” he said.

The Asean Ministerial Meeting in the Philippines on November 3-4 should help unlock all issues on which there are differences so that RCEP can be finalised next year, Ronnarong said.

Earlier, RCEP countries had agreed to cut tariffs on 80 per cent of traded goods. However, negotiations are yet to conclude on the remaining 20 per cent. RCEP is also awaiting each member to propose a list of goods under the tariff reduction modality. However, some countries have proposed to cut tariffs on less than 80 per cent. In the service sector RCEP countries have a different bargain, as Asean would like to commit 100 businesses from a total of 155 businesses, while some countries like Australia would like to commit 120 businesses of trade in service.

RCEP has also demanded that all countries must get the same privilege if any country allows other countries to hold stakes in the service business. For instance, if Thailand allows a foreign national to hold more than 49-per-cent share in a service business, other RCEP member states would have to be allowed more than 49 per cent stake as well.