Trade: Half World and Product Trade

trade: The RCEP is viewed as a major alternative to the TPP, the 12-nation trade pact agreed last year and then dealt a massive blow by the withdrawal in January of the United States as one of the first acts by newly elected President Donald Trump, according to The Japan Times. RCEP is the only game in town given the current negotiations of the TPP, said Philippine Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo. Instead, the economic ministers involved in negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership RCEP agreement covering more than 3.5 billion people, or half the world's population, and 30 percent of global gross domestic product and trade said they will strive to make major progress by November when the leaders of the 16 nations meet in Manila. ; Those 16 nations are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, as well as all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Economic ministers from the 16 nations were meeting in Manila as part of the 49th ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting and Related Meetings. The RCEP participating countries abandoned the target of concluding the negotiations within this year due to differences in tariff reduction or elimination targets, as well as services to be opened up, according to Rodolfo. The gathering was also the fifth ministerial meeting for the RCEP, for which negotiations began in 2013. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.