‘Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)’

Current Context: The 10 members of the ASEAN and FTA partners China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to sign the ‘Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)’.

• The RCEP is the world’s largest trading bloc and the world’s biggest free trade deal.
• This was signed on the sidelines of the 37th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit (Hosted by Vietnam). 
• RCEP is basically an agreement between ASEAN members and FTA. 
• This agreement will help to create an integrated market with 15 countries, which will enable the availability of products and services of each country within the agreement available across the region.
• RCEP will focus on trading activities, investments, intellectual property, dispute settlement, e-commerce, SMEs and economic cooperation.
• Also, the nations in this agreement will have to ratify and analyze the RCEP within 2 years in order to make it effectively work.