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The largest free trade agreement will be signed in Singapore on Sunday, the last day of the ongoing summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Analysts believe the deal will have a fundamental and lasting impact on world trade. In addition to the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are signing the agreement. Although India was supposed to join the deal, they pulled out of the talks last year.
The new alliance, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Association (RCEP), represents 30 percent of global GDP. As a result, the agreement will create the largest free trade zone in the world. The scope of this new trade zone in Asia will be greater than the free trade zone between the United States, Canada and Mexico, or the European Union.
The agreement is an important step forward in the liberalization of trade and investment in the region, according to AFP, citing Rajiv Biswas, chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region at business consultancy IHS Markets. Because according to him, RCEP will become the largest commercial region in the world.
It is known that this agreement was first proposed in 2012. Then, for eight years, it is becoming a reality with great enthusiasm and initiative from China. The Bangkok Post, one of Thailand’s leading daily newspapers, wrote in a report that the free trade agreement was seen as a blow against China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The Bangkok Post quoted Alexander Capri, a professor of commerce at the National University of Singapore, as saying that the alliance would definitely help China realize its geopolitical ambitions.
China is filling the void that the United States has lagged behind in free trade under President Donald Trump. In 2016, Donald Trump removed the United States from the free trade agreement that the TPP signed with 10 countries in Asia and the Pacific and the United States. Many analysts believe that the new agreement will allow China to regulate trade policy and conditions in Asia in the future.
“The United States does not have two major trade agreements in Asia, so there will be a change in the ability to establish trade and investment conditions and values in Asia,” said The Diplomat, a Washington-based research journal, citing the Carnegie Endowment. for International Peace.
Ankit Panda, former editor of The Diplomat, tweeted that the RCEP deal was a clear indication that great things were happening in Asia and that more would happen, whether the United States joined in or not.
In addition to Japan and Australia, there are concerns in several Southeast Asian countries about Chinese dominance. Even after that, they are no longer reluctant to join the RECP, but there are clear indications that their enthusiasm has increased as of late. “After eight years of blood, sweat and tears, we are finally ready to sign the RCEP on Sunday,” said Mohamed Ajmin Ali, Malaysia’s trade minister.
Many analysts say there is growing interest in signing the agreement to help ASEAN countries overcome the extreme economic pressures that have resulted from the Corona transition. Source: BBC Bangla.
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