RCEP even more important now: Asean-Korea Centre

KUALA LUMPUR: The US’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has given the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) a more important role in the region’s trade, said the Asean-Korea Centre (AKC).
AKC is an intergovernmental organisation mandated to promote economic and socio-cultural cooperation between Asean member states and Korea.
“With the changing landscape of economic cooperation in this region, like the new US government’s position in the TPP, the importance of RCEP is going to be bigger,” AKC secretary-general Kim Young-Sun (pix) said at Malaysian Investment Development Authority’s (Mida)-AKC joint seminar on business opportunities in Malaysia’s smart manufacturing yesterday.
“I think RCEP will be a great value and contribution to the trade as well as to the overall economic cooperation in this region, but it’s up to the negotiation this year,” Kim added, noting the country is still in the process of upgrading the trade’s facilitation.
Negotiations on RCEP, which were supposed to be concluded in 2015 as well as last year, are scheduled to take place in Japan by late this month and early March.
Kim who graced the joint seminar, said he believes that Malaysia will be able to play a bigger role in smart manufacturing sector, given its high level of infrastructure and ICT, as well as favourable policy towards the fourth industrial revolution.
Thus, Mida CEO Datuk Azman Mahmud encouraged the manufacturing and services sector, which contributes almost 80% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), to adopt automation and smart manufacturing concepts and technologies, in order to boost productivity and innovation.
Currently, Azman said about 120 major local companies are capable of producing advanced handling systems with full automation, incorporating intelligent robot including machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, such as Vitrox Corp Bhd, Visdynamics Holdings Bhd and Walta Group.
He said through the seminar, Mida looks forward to having more collaborations between both Malaysia’s and Korea’s business communities-particularly in the areas of smart manufacturing.
The seminar, which aims to raise awareness on the opportunities of automation and smart manufacturing, was attended by 90 local players.