“One thing I must say is, the conflict between US and China has actually provided impetus to the early conclusion of RCEP,” said Norazman Ayob, the deputy secretary-general of the international trade and industry ministry during a keynote address at the “China Conference”, organised by the South China Morning Post.

He said at a luncheon for RCEP negotiations in Jakarta earlier this week, all the 16 nations agreed that there is now a “renewed momentum” to conclude the trade agreement as possible.

“This is also in view of some countries, even in Asean, which would be going for their elections soon,” Norazman said.

He added that even though some member nations may be having new governments with new priorities, the consensus of all economies was still to have a substantial conclusion by the end of 2018.

“India, together with a few other economies, have certain issues, but during my discussion with my counterpart from India, I can sense they are more amenable now,” he said, adding that this may be because of the US-China conflict’s impact on their economy.

India is going onto its elections next year. Therefore, he added, the country would also want to conclude the negotiations as early as possible.

RCEP is an FTA involving 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the six Asia-Pacific states — China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia and India.

Norazman added that the current government is reviewing all FTAs to ensure they are “mutually beneficial”, saying “we don’t want to be dominated by any one economic power”.

If concluded, RCEP may be “the world’s mega FTA”, creating the largest integrated market consisting of 3.5 billion people, he said.