Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Trade Agreement w/ Damien O'Conner and Edward Miller: November 19, 2020

After 8 years of negotiations New Zealand has finally signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP trade deal, with the Association of South East Asian Nations, plus China, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

Some things to note are:

• The RCEP was signed with 15 Asia and Pacific nations, almost a third of the worlds population.
• This was negotiated behind closed doors, which means New Zealanders didn't know what was being agreed on until it was already signed and didn't get the opportunity to have much of a say. This is the same problem that many kiwis had with the TPPA trade agreement.
• India is not part of the deal, they pulled out. If they were it would be very economically positive for New Zealand. But the rest of the countries we already have Free Trade Ageements with, so many are asking what the point of signing onto something that could restrict us, when we might only get 0.3% increase of GDP out of it. 

Ayana spoke with Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O'Connor and It's Our Future Spokesperson Edward Miller about the impact of the trade deal on New Zealand.