RCEP Ministers Meet in Manila, Advance Expansion and Upgrade Talks

The accession working groups for Bangladesh, Chile, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka signal that RCEP is shifting from consolidation to enlargement, which matters for trade flows and rules-of-origin planning across Asia. The upgrade scope document, with a launch targeted for 2027, is the more consequential track: it sets the agenda for what the bloc's next phase covers. Whether the membership track and the upgrade track stay synchronized is the open question, particularly given how differently those four candidates sit within existing regional supply chains.