Thursday, November 26, 2015

TPP vs. RCEP


The TPP (Trans- Pacific Partnership) is a multinational trade agreement between 12 countries namely, USA, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan.

Each nation wanted to end the negotiation in 2012, but there were a few issues such as agriculture, Intellectual Property and investments which caused the negotiations to continue.

South Korea did not participate in the 2006 agreement, but showed interest in entering the TPP agreement. The other countries interested in the agreement are Taiwan, the Philippines and Colombia as of 2010; Thailand and Laos as of 2012; Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh and India as of 2013.


The RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is another FTA negotiation that has developed among 16 countries; the 10 members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and the six countries with which ASEAN has existing Free Trade Agreements (FTA) – Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand. In relation to RCEP these six non-ASEAN countries are known as the ASEAN Free Trade Partners. In between these countries seven have already signed the TPP Agreement and the others are interested in the TPP membership. So we can presume that these two agreement member countries will come under one umbrella to create new vast free trade zone.

-Atanu Mistry