The member countries of RCEP . Source : Tiger 7253 - Own work , CC BY-SA 4.0 , https :// commons . wikimedia . org / w / index . php ? curid = 57964894
Parties agreed that the economic and technical co-operation in the RCEP context aims to narrow the development gaps and maximise mutual benefits among the Parties .
Dispute Settlement
Chapter 19 on Dispute Settlement aims to provide effective , efficient , and transparent rules and procedures for settlement of disputes arising under RCEP . Salient features of the RCEP dispute settlement process include :
( i ) choice of forum : provisions allow the Complaining Party to select the forum within which to address a dispute that concerns substantially equivalent rights and obligations under RCEP and another international trade or investment agreement to which the Parties to the dispute are party , to the exclusion of other possible fora ;
( ii ) consultations : provisions require a Responding Party to first enter into consultation with a Complaining Party , if requested ;
( iii ) good offices , conciliation , or mediation : provisions allow Parties that are party to the dispute to voluntarily undertake alternative methods to settle their disputes ;
( iv ) establishment of a panel : provisions allow a Complaining Party to request for the establishment of a panel to resolve a dispute in circumstances where the Responding Party does not reply to a request for consultations or does not enter into consultations within the stipulated time line , or where consultations have failed to resolve the dispute within the stipulated time line ; and
( v ) rights for interested third parties : provisions enable interested third parties to participate in disputes and for their views to be taken into account during the panel process .
Final Provisions
The Final Provisions Chapter sets out the relationship between the RCEP Agreement and other international agreements , a general review mechanism , procedures to amend the Agreement , and an accession provision .
CONCLUSION
With the Malaysian economy recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and projecting a stronger economic growth in 2021 and beyond , RCEP will be an important platform to ride on for higher economic growth . In this context , there will likely be more engineering-related economic activities along the supply chain for the engineering fraternity .
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