KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia hopes to conclude talks with other Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries by the end of this year.
“Our focus is on RCEP. We were able to make some progress at the end of 2018 in Singapore, but it has not reached a substantive conclusion. There isn't any strong indicator that we'll be able to finish it in the first half of 2019,” said Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Dr Ong Kian Ming.
“The negotiation is ongoing. I think it will take until the rest of the year to get to the end stage,” he told reporters at the sidelines of International Conference on Globalisation: Contents and Discontents organised by the World Bank here today.
The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) among the the 10-member ASEAN, comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and the six countries with which the regional grouping has existing FTAs with; namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
The RCEP has a population of 3.4 billion, with a total economic value of US$49.5 trillion or about 39 per cent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).
Last year, Ambassador and head of EU delegations to Malaysia Maria Castillo Fernandez had expressed interests to revive the EU-Malaysia FTA talks.
The EU-Malaysia free trade agreement negotiation was initiated in 2010 and it was set aside in 2012. The EU bloc, headquartered in Brussels, consists of 28 member states.
When asked to comment, Ong said it is difficult to re-start talks with the EU if palm oil continues to be discriminated with tariff and technical trade barriers.
“Smear campaigns against palm oil is a form of technical trade barrier. If the EU continues to discriminate against palm oil, I think it would be very difficult to re-start the FTA talks,” Ong said.
Last month, Indonesia concluded FTA talks with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), whose member countries are Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland.
After eight years of negotiations, on the 16th December 2018, Indonesia is able to conclude with EFTA, on its own terms.
Indonesia and EFTA's agreement allows for sustainably-managed forest resources and vegetable oils. Indonesian palm oil gets full market access into Iceland and Norway, with an exception of palm products for animal feed other than for fish.
When asked on Malaysia’s negotiations with the four member countries of EFTA, Ong replied “we are working hard to achieve similar outcome as that of Indonesia.”