Trade Deal Matters 17 Dec 2020

  • Thursday, December 17, 2020
    3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Hear directly from one of the Key Negotiators for RCEP and find out what it means for your business now and in the future!
Share and invite your Business Leaders and colleagues from various departments (eg. Sales, Supply chain, Internal & External Affair etc.) whom you think is keen to know more about RCEP and how it can help to grow your business. Don’t miss this great opportunity to grab hold of the latest information!

WHAT IS THE RCEP?

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement is the world’s biggest trade deal among 15 countries, which broaden and deepen ASEAN’s engagement with Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand.

The agreement aims to lower tariffs, open up trade in goods and services, and promote investment to help emerging economies catch up with the rest of the world. It will also give the participating countries preferential access into growing markets in the region, and reduce costs and time for companies by allowing them to export products anywhere within the bloc without meeting separate requirements for each country. Rules on e-commerce, intellectual property and competition policy rights have also been established under the RCEP.

 

WHY IS IT SIGNIFICANT?

Among the key benefits are a tariff elimination of at least 92 per cent of goods traded, with more preferential market access for Singapore’s exports, the Ministry of Trade of Industry said. There will also be simplified customs procedure and improved trade facilitation, lowering transaction time and costs, and giving Singapore exporters greater certainty.

 

Speaker Bio:

Ms. Anna Maria Rosario Diaz Robeniol is the Director of the Market Integration Directorate under the ASEAN Economic Community Department  of the ASEAN Secretariat. She was the Head of the External Economic Relations Division of the ASEAN Secretariat from 2018 – August 2020. Before re-joining the ASEAN Secretariat in 2018, Anna was the Assistant Secretary for Trade Policy and Negotiations at the Department of Trade and Industry, Philippines (2016-2018). During her tenure as Assistant Secretary, Anna was the Philippines’ chief negotiator for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and other trade negotiations involving the Philippines. She was the country’s Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) lead and chaired the said meeting during the Philippines’ chairmanship of ASEAN in 2017. She also co-Chaired the Joint Committee for the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

Prior to that, Anna spent more than twelve years at the ASEAN Secretariat, during which she facilitated the completion of negotiations and signing of all the ASEAN Free Trade and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements. She also worked on RCEP until the launch of negotiations in 2012. Anna represented the ASEAN Secretariat in various regional and international forums and led the ASEAN Secretariat team in supporting the implementation of ASEAN FTAs.

Anna has vast experience in trade policy and negotiations. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics degree from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and has a Post-Graduate Diploma on International Relations and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. She has a Master’s degree in Public Management, which she obtained as a Lee Kuan Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and the Harvard Kennedy School at the Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.