WELLINGTON, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern welcomed on Tuesday the significant progress in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations between ASEAN and its dialogue partners, New Zealand government's official website said here on Tuesday.
"RCEP will increase New Zealand exporters' security in the region, while protecting their competitive interests in countries which include 7 of New Zealand's top 10 trading partners," Ardern said.
"This also provides an important boost to the regional economy at a time of rising turbulence and slowing global trade and economic growth," Ardern added.
"The RCEP participants take 61 percent of our goods exports and 50 percent of our services exports. RCEP is of considerable commercial and strategic value to New Zealand," Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth Damien O'Connor said.
The RCEP, launched in 2012, is a proposed mega trade pact between 10-member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their six free trade partners -- China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
Once in operation, it will become the world's largest free trade agreement, covering 32.2 percent of global GDP and 3.5 billion people, or almost half of the world's population.
RCEP economies account for 29.1 percent of global trade and about one-third of global investment inflows.
