The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, could move forward even without India “for the time being”. That’s according to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The RCEP negotiations, which involve 16 countries in the Asia Pacific, have been ongoing since 2013. However, India’s reluctance to open up its markets hinders any progress to reach a deal.
China, the second largest economy in the world, has lost patience due to slow progress on negotiation talks. The Nikkei Asian Review reported that China recommended moving forward without India, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Malaysian PM in an interview with CNBC that reaching a deal would be a challenge because the 16 countries involved are competing with each other. “To go on to work together requires some radical change in our mindset. That will take time,” Mahathir said. He also talked about the framework which would work best. Mahathir said that for the time being, he prefers the 13-nation deal China has proposed. The original deal involved all 16 countries.
The RCEP involves 10 countries in the Southeast Asian region: Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Brunei, Laos, and Cambodia. The other 6 countries are China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, all large trading partners of the said ASEAN countries. The RCEP aims to form a major trading bloc that covers around one-third of the world’s gross domestic product.
US-China Trade War
The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China has several RCEP participating countries concerned. Thus, they would want to wrap up negotiation talks by the end of this year. U.S. President Trump and Chinse President Xi Jinping are set to meet at the G-20 summit in Japan later this month, but PM Mahathir said he doesn’t much from the meeting.
Also read: US-China Trade War: How Will Malaysia Benefit From It?
