On December 1-10, the 16th Round of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Negotiation was held in Tangerang, Indonesia. Attending were 10 countries of ASEAN, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Secretariat of ASEAN. With the guidance of RCEP ministerial meetings held in November, all sides held in-depth talks on the market access of three issues of trade in goods, trade in service and investment and stepped up negotiations on IPR, competition, e-commerce and legal terms.

All sides have completed negotiation on the chapter of SMEs, which is a major progress after since the concluding of the chapter of economic and technological cooperation. It’s conducive to promoting information exchanges and cooperation between SMEs of RCEP members and boosting SMEs better benefit from the achievements of RCEP negotiations.

It’s decided to hold the 17th round of RCEP negotiation in Kobe, Japan on February 27-March 3, 2017.