Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Alfredo Pascual announced that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact among 15 economies in the Asia Pacific region is to take effect on 02 June 2023. The full implementation of RCEP will help expand the trade and investment to all signatory countries within 20 years, including eliminating tariff rates — or the taxes imposed on imported products — on 90% of goods.

Under the RCEP rules, tariff commitments shall be imposed in the country 60 days after the government has deposited the instrument of ratification with the ASEAN Secretary General, which was previously done on April 3.

RCEP as an instrument will also be used to recognize and address the bottlenecks to improve the Philippines sector and the overall export development.

The DTI also mentioned that before the RCEP takes effect, they are eyeing to launch an import monitoring system that would detect a surge in imported products, which is set to be operational by “the fourth week” of May this year.  For more information, please click this link. AOB