Loading and unloading activities in a port in Jakarta - Illustrative image (Source: Antaranews) Jakarta (VNA) - Indonesia expects to sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in mid-November as the countries concerned finish negotiating trade issues.
The Indonesian government is looking to sign the deal on November 14, said Netty Muharni, deputy assistant for regional and subregional economic cooperation at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister.
Indonesian officials said the participating countries, including 10 ASEAN member countries, together with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea, had finished negotiating technical issues of the trade deal and carried out the legal scrubbing up of the agreement text.
“After that, there will be a ratification process that can take up to two years before [the RCEP] comes into force, which is possible only if six ASEAN countries and three partners have ratified it,” Netty was quoted by The Jakarta Post as saying in a virtual discussion earlier this week.
The participating countries, which collectively account for nearly one-third of the global economy, are expected to sign the trade deal in November, about eight years after the negotiations were launched.
For Indonesia, around 95 billion USD, 61.65 percent, of its total exports last year were channeled to the RCEP countries, according to Antonius Yudi Triantoro, director of ASEAN negotiations at the Trade Ministry, quoting data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS).
RCEP countries accounted for 106 billion USD, 71.38 percent, of Indonesia’s total imports last year. Since 2012, Indonesia has booked trade deficits with the RCEP countries./.
VNA
