D

espite a renewed push this year, the conclusion of an ambitious 16-country free trade deal must again be postponed until next year and ASEAN’s partners are partly to blame.

Members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have for the past two days pushed through tricky negotiations on common provisions, but they were ultimately blocked by demands from ASEAN’s partner countries.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Wednesday that the mega free trade agreement (FTA) would be concluded in 2019 and that the negotiations had taken longer than usual because of “unique challenges” from its member countries.

“Complexities are expected as we are a group of diverse economies. For a number of us, this will be our first FTA with each other,” Lee said in opening remarks for the second RCEP Summit in Singapore.

The island state, which is chairing the 10-member ASEAN this year, had pushed for a substantial conclusion to the agreement this year, but efforts faltered over issues such as Japan’s insistence on including provisions on e-commerce, which is not included in the deal.

In spite of the hurdles, the 10 ASEAN countries, as well as South Korea, China, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand, concluded six more chapters of provisions, bringing the total number of concluded chapters to seven this year.

“With the strong momentum generated this year, I am pleased to note that the RCEP negotiations are poised for conclusion in 2019,” Lee said.

On Tuesday, various delegates, including Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita, said there were three particular chapters that became sticking points among several negotiating parties and that the rest had in principle no other objections. These were chapters on competition policy, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and standards and compliance.

The latter two were debated by China and India, but this was resolved after bilateral talks on Monday, Enggartiasto said. However, he said the chapter on competition policy hit a wall because Japan had “hijacked” the talks by imposing its demand to include e-commerce as part of the RCEP.

Bloomberg reported that India had dragged its feet as the RCEP does not provide for free movement of skilled labor, a key concern for New Delhi given its large pool of tech workers, even as it opens its market to a clutch of nations known for their manufacturing prowess.

“At this stage, the ministers should no longer just repeat their positions but offer solutions and be willing to recalibrate their ambitions for our common interest,” he said, adding that he remains optimistic that negotiations could still be concluded next year.

The RCEP Summit concluded on Wednesday with a joint leaders’ statement, in which participating countries noted that the task of concluding negotiations was becoming “urgent and significant given the current headwinds faced by the global economy”.

The RCEP is expected to be limited in scope, with a pronounced focus on goods and services.

The stalemate appears unlikely to be completely overcome as RCEP member countries like Australia, India, Thailand and Indonesia are going into elections next year.