A supermarket in Thailand (Photo VNA) Bangkok (VNA) - Thailand has submitted to the ASEAN Secretariat its ratification for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade pact and reaffirmed that the world's biggest free trade deal will come into force on January 1 next year as scheduled, according to the Bangkok Post.
The Bangkok Post quoted an unnamed source in the Thai Commerce Ministry as saying that Thailand, through Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, submitted the ratification for RCEP on Oct 28 to the ASEAN Secretariat, ahead of the previous deadline set in November.
The Thai Parliament ratified the pact on February 9 this year. The agreement, signed by 15 countries last November, will come into effect 60 days after it is ratified by at least six ASEAN member nations and three other signatory countries.
Among the signatories, Singapore and China have completed ratification procedures.
The RCEP groups the ten ASEAN member nations - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.
Five ASEAN member countries - Singapore, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, have submitted their ratification of the pact.
Trade Negotiations Department's director-general Auramon Supthaweethum said Thailand will benefit from RCEP in terms of a bigger market because RCEP is the world's largest trading and investment market, comprising 15 countries with a population of nearly 2.3 billion, with a total GDP of 28.5 trillion USD in 2020.
The RCEP trade volume tallied over 10.7 trillion USD or 30.3 percent of global trade last year./.
