Asia-Pacific Region May Consolidate Its Trade Pacts – APEC Advisor

Manila is currently hosting APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, bringing together senior officials and members of business to discuss significant issues of multilateral cooperation in the region.

MANILA (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — Numerous deals regulating trade within Asia-Pacific region are expected to merge, a Japanese delegate to a business advisory council of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) told Sputnik.

"If you have two or three different agreements, it is difficult for businesses to deal with rules, especially for the SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises]. So they will have to merge," Julius Caesar Parrenas, a member of the APEC Business Advisory Council, said.

According to Parrenas, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is only one of several regional multilateral trade agreements. He cited the example of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) regulating trade between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members.

The TPP is a US-led trade deal of 12 Pacific nations, which together make up 40 percent of the world economy. Negotiations on the precise wording of the document was finalized last month between members, including the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The RCEP is a 16-nation negotiation on a trade area between 10 ASEAN states and the six non-ASEAN regional countries, including Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. According to ASEAN data, RCEP states make up some 30 percent of the world economy.