The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a free trade agreement involving ASEAN and six partners: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. Negotiations for the deal between the 16 participating nations began in 2012 and will wrap up by the end of this year. Vo Tri Thanh, deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), spoke to the media about the RCEP's likely impacts. What will be the impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership on Viet Nam's economy?

HA NOI (VNS) — Experts yesterday expressed doubts about Viet Nam's ability to ease its business environment to the average level of doing business in ASEAN-6 by the end of the year. They were discussing targets set by Government Resolution No 19/NQ-CP on improving the business environment and national competitiveness in 2015 and 2016 by reducing costs, time and risks involved . By the end of this year, the Department of Customs plans to reduce time spent on export customs procedures to 13 working days and to 14 working days for imports.

Trade Negotiations Minister Tim Groser expects to resume bilateral negotiations towards the Trans Pacific Partnership in two weeks in Kuala Lumpur, and talks have continued since the last ministerial meeting in Maui, Hawaii. "Already there are numerous conversations going on. I'm having meetings all the time...constant conversations, telephone conversations, emails." There is no date set yet for the next collective ministerial meeting but he said the Maui meeting created a sense of purpose.

After the European Union and its fifth-largest trading partner Vietnam announced last week that they had agreed in principle to lift most tariffs on goods in the coming years, China and the EU should seriously think about removing their customs barriers to boost the combined economies of roughly 2 billion consumers. On Aug 4, the EU said it would eliminate its duties over a seven-year period and Vietnam agreed to liberalize trade in financial services, telecommunications, transport, and postal and courier services over 10 years.

Last week, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economics Sofyan Djalil said that Indonesia is now open to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement following the Trade Promotion Authority victory U.S. President Barack Obama secured in Congress last month “Many policymakers in Asia didn’t believe that President Obama will get the mandate,” Djalil told Reuters in an interview last Friday. “TPP is now getting closer and closer to reality, and now the option is to join it or you’re left out.”

Despite the failure of the latest Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks in Hawaii, a conclusion of the potentially world-changing trade pact remains on the cards over the next 12 months, said former U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk. "I've been in these negotiations and I know the worst thing to do is to put an artificial timeline on it," Kirk, the former Democratic mayor of Dallas and once America's chief trade negotiator, said in an exclusive interview with CNBC at the weekend.

Following the conclusion of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement negotiations in July and expectations that it will be signed later this year, Liliana Lizarazo Rodriguez, a free trade agreement specialist at Belgian law firm A–Law International and the firm’s managing partner Patricia Leers discuss the challenges facing Vietnamese companies once this agreement takes effect. The twelfth round of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between the EU and Vietnam was held in Hanoi in March 2015.

Canadian auto parts makers say they are worried about the prospect of Japan winning the right to sell cars duty-free inside a future Trans-Pacific Partnership trade zone when a majority of the vehicle content comes from low-cost countries that are not signatories to the commercial accord. The Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA) predicts that this would end up hurting Canadian auto-sector firms.

Vietnam and the European Union (EU) have basically concluded negotiations on the bilateral free trade agreement (EVFTA), announced Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang at a press conference in Hanoi on August 4. Hoang said he and EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom had a phone talks on August 4 during which they agreed on the basic conclusion of negotiations on the EVFTA, which is one of the agreements with the highest quality between the two sides and expected to greatly benefit their peoples and businesses.

Twelve-nation Pacific Rim trade talks must better reflect the interests of participants other than the United States and Japan, rather than centering on their bilateral agreements, New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser told Japan's Nikkei business daily. He rejected suggestions, however, that New Zealand had played a major role in scuttling a possible deal in Trans-Pacific Partnership talks last week by taking hard line on dairy market access, according to an interview published on Thursday.