The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) could provide a key impetus to Cambodia to graduate from its least developed country (LDC) status by 2028, according to the country’s commerce minister Pan Sorasak, who recently said the deal would help to cushion the blow from growing global uncertainties, including potential spillover from the Ukraine crisis.
The uncertainties also include stalled multilateralism at the World Trade Organisation and the rising employment of unilateral protectionist policies among member states, he told a workshop titled ‘RCEP: Implications, Challenges and Future Growth of East Asia and ASEAN’.
The workshop was jointly organised by the Jakarta-based think tank Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and the commerce ministry’s Trade Training and Research Institute (TTRI), the ministry said in a statement.
