The Philippines positive towards RCEP and China ties

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The Philippines trusts that the fruits of the long-awaited mega trade deal Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) may materialize next year, as most of the terms and proper groundwork have been laid, the nation’s Secretary of Trade and Industry Ramon Lopez told CGTN on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Vietnam.

The RCEP is a proposed Free Trade Agreement, or FTA, between ASEAN member states and the six states including China, India and Japan.

Lopez believes that this regional integration discussion really takes time, and more substantial conclusions are expected to be achieved by the end of this year. ASEAN participants have agreed on the general framework and will further open up the markets.

“The parameters have been agreed on and moving forward it's just setting the final numbers, and hopefully next year or the year after, we will be able to come to a final conclusion,” he said in an interview with CGTN’s Tian Wei.

In 2017, prospective RCEP member states accounted for a population of 3.4 billion people with a total GDP of 49.5 trillion US dollars, approximately 39 percent of the world's GDP, with the combined GDPs of China and India making up more than half that amount.

Lopez said China is one of the biggest economies in this region and President Xi Jinping’s vision of globalization has been recognized by many countries.

China has extensive cooperation with the Philippines on investment, tourism and infrastructures. He is also glad to see stronger ties between China and the Philippines and believes that a more open market will benefit small economies like the Philippines.