Thailand joins 21st RCEP-TNC in Indonesia

BANGKOK, February 5 (TNA) - Thailand has sent a delegation to participate in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership-Trade Negotiating Committee (RCEP-TNC) Meeting, being held in Yogyakarta on the Indonesian Java Island during February 2-9. Ronnarong Poonpipat, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Trade Negotiations, under the Ministry of Commerce, who is leading the Thai delegation to attend the 21st RCEP-TNC Meeting, told journalists on February 4, prior to his departure for Yogyakarta, that member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Thailand, have agreed to speed up the negotiations on the establishment of RCEP to have an obvious progress by 2018. Ronnarong acknowledged that a gradual progress has been seen since the First RECP Summit in the Philippines in November 2017 and the ongoing one week-meeting is significant as key issues are on the top on the agenda, including trade in goods, trade in services and investment. Besides, bilateral talks between ASEAN and dialogue partners were set to be held on the sidelines of the 21st RCEP-TNC Meeting to increase the progressive prospect of the ongoing discussions, covering proposed issues on the elimination of tariffs on up to 92 per cent of overall identical items of goods and services and the total value of the imported items within 15 years, based on the equal practice for each country, and on the opening up of markets of each country for the remaining 8 per cent of the overall items of goods and services. "ASEAN member countries earlier agreed to hold meetings of the committee-level and the ministerial level since early 2018, aimed to push for an obvious progress of the planned establishment of RCEP within this year. The results of the ongoing RCEP-TNC Meeting will show whether the targeted progress within this year should be met, said the senior Thai official. In case of Thailand, the senior official revealed that his department held a meeting of public and private agencies concerned on January 31 to discuss, as well as share information and ideas, expected to benefits the country's negotiations on the planned establishment of RCEP, on such newly-included issues as e-commerce, conditions on business competition and intellectual property protection. According to the senior official, the value of Thailand's trade with other RCEP member countries in 2017 totaled about 240 billion US dollars, or 59.32 per cent of the Thai Kingdom's trade with global economies. RCEP is a proposed massive free trade agreement (FTA) between ASEAN 10 member countries, including Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the 10-member bloc's dialogue partners, namely China, India, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. (TNA)