 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The first point I want to make is that the RCEP has been signed through a virtual online ASEAN summit without any democratic scrutiny. And secondly, it's been signed at the time of unprecedented emergencies, a crisis of health systems and the scramble for a COVID-19 vaccine and a deepening economic recession that the World Bank estimates will last some five years. And in that context, many experts have recognized that during such a time, you know, laissez-faire economics or free markets should not be the policy option. For instance, ANTAD, in its recently released 2020 Trade and Development Report, argues that countries should maintain policy and fiscal space to fight COVID-19 and to divide their trade and industries. This means that they need to take specific actions to boost local manufacturing and add more jobs, raise revenues and spend more in the economy. And signing an FTA like the RCEP initiates against all of this. Now, there are 15 countries in the RCEP and they are a mix of developed, you know, like Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, the developing countries like Thailand, Malaysia and least developed countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and therefore the RCEP will also have mixed impacts and there will be some gainers and losers. Now, labor unions such as the Central and the Philippines feel that in the current situation of broken supply chains and closure of industrial activity across the economy, related massive job losses, governments need to step in and plan the recovery, you know, and this includes reinstating industrial policy, including by localizing and diversifying production. Export-led growth promoted by the RCEP would take these countries in the exact opposite direction and draw, you know, countries of policy tools that would revive the economy and create jobs. And these fears by labor unions are not unfounded. You know, a forthcoming untapped assessment on the impacts of RCEP shows that in much of the ASEAN countries, including Cambodia and Philippines, there would be net losses due to RCEP, which means that exports would not rise as you signed the agreement, but imports will, which clearly means more jobs are lost. And the point is that to stop these imports and protect jobs and livelihoods, countries need policy space. And this is where the RCEP makes absolutely no sense during the current crisis. And to end, the RCEP text was released only on Sunday. It's 20 chapters, covers more than 500 pages. The additional annexures as well. It now needs to be ratified by national parliaments before it comes into effect. And that could take up to two years. And I think across the ASEAN region and in other member countries like South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, parliamentarians and labor unions and other people's movements will continue to raise these concerns and try and stop the ratification process.