This week the Financial Express in Bangladesh reported that the South Asian
country was considering joining ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement talks. The report indicated that Bangladesh’s joining
the RCEP talks was suggested by the local representative of the Japan
International Cooperation Agency to the Bangladeshi central bank. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Commerce is now
conducting a feasibility study.
Although it is probably not realistic to expect
Bangladesh to join the ongoing RCEP talks, which are scheduled to end by the
close of 2015, the idea of Bangladesh eventually joining is not
far-fetched. After all, fellow South
Asian country India is already part of the RCEP talks as well as part of the
BIMSTEC regional grouping which includes ASEAN members Myanmar and Thailand (and
which itself trying to achieve a free trade agreement).
The article also belies a commonly held
assumption (particularly in the US) that the RCEP is a China-organized
effort. Rather, the conceptualization of
RCEP was largely driven by Japan and Japanese-supported entities. The initial benefits of harmonizing the ASEAN
FTAs will accrue to the
Japanese manufacturers which are already operating at a high level of economic
integration in ASEAN. Of course,
China and other trading partners of ASEAN will eventually benefit as well.
The possibility that other Asian economies
could participate in the RCEP process (such as Taiwan and Hong Kong)
illustrates the potential long-term influence of regional economic integration
in Asia. The RCEP process is not as
ambitious as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks, but at this point (due
to political
difficulties in the US Congress regarding American negotiation and implementation
of any resulting agreement) the RCEP looks more likely to achieve its
target goals.
