General

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) entered into force for the Philippines on June 2, marking the full entry into force of RCEP for the 10 ASEAN countries and 15 signatory countries, including Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Since its entry into force in 2022, the economies of all signatory countries of RCEP have benefited from it. This comprehensive entry into force will further enhance the confidence of all signatory countries in fulfilling their obligations and make international trade and economic exchanges between regions closer.

As the world's second largest economy and the world's largest trading country for goods, China plays an important role in RCEP while also promoting its own open development. Many Chinese enterprises enjoy the dividends released by RCEP, accelerating its internationalization and globalization process. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in 2022, Chinese enterprises will enjoy an export value of 235.3 billion yuan in international trade under RCEP, and can enjoy a tariff reduction of 1.58 billion yuan from the importing country; The import value of Xianghui is 65.3 billion yuan, with a tax reduction of 1.55 billion yuan. In the first quarter of 2023, Chinese enterprises will enjoy a preferential export value of 62.29 billion yuan under RCEP, and can enjoy a tariff reduction of 930 million yuan from international trade importing countries; The import value of Xianghui is 18.25 billion yuan, with a tax reduction of 480 million yuan.

For Chinese enterprises, utilizing the RCEP rules is not only about using the rules of origin well to enjoy tariff preferences, but also actively adjusting strategies, further optimizing the industrial and supply chain layout within RCEP, making good use of the large market of regional integration, and polishing more products and services suitable for globalization. Although the current global economic recovery is facing various challenges brought about by geopolitical turmoil and the rise of anti globalization trends, it has become an unchangeable fact that RCEP has become a testing ground for the globalization of Chinese enterprises. This is mainly reflected in the following two aspects:

One is the acceleration of global high-quality resources and elements gathering within the RCEP region. The comprehensive implementation of RCEP to the 15 signatories will greatly promote the free flow of resources such as goods, services, capital, technology, talents, data and information in the region, promote wider, higher level and deeper open cooperation, and gradually form a more prosperous regional integration market. It should be further pointed out that academia and industry insiders generally believe that the global economic center is currently moving eastward, and with the eastward shift of global manufacturing, the modern high-end service industry is also moving eastward. The comprehensive implementation of RCEP will further accelerate this process, making the RCEP region a hot spot for global investment. In this process, factors such as technology, capital, talent, and data from around the world will accelerate their gathering in the RCEP region, and a world economy with the largest growth pole is imminent.

Secondly, the RCEP region has formed a continuous market ladder. The total population, GDP, and trade value of goods in the RCEP region all account for about 30% of the global market. The market size is already large enough, and it also has markets in both developed and developing countries. This means that RCEP has low-income, middle-income, and high-income groups, forming a continuous market ladder. The continuous market ladder essentially expands the market size and opens up the channels for products and services to "rise" and "sink".

To become a global enterprise, it is not only necessary to make good use of global resources, but also to create products and services that have certain competitiveness globally. The recently popular ChatGPT is a product that OpenAI utilizes global resources to create that conforms to global user habits under open market conditions, becoming a model of enterprise globalization in the digital economy era.

Over the past 45 years of reform and opening up, Chinese enterprises, especially private enterprises, have continuously developed and grown, competing with multinational enterprises from developed countries on the global stage, resulting in a number of benchmark enterprises such as Huawei. However, the reality is that the path for most Chinese companies to globalize is to first occupy the domestic market, and then go global. However, even so, many companies still face difficulties in exploring international trade markets and may still face difficulties in adapting to local conditions. Nowadays, with the continuous expansion of China's opening up, a group of Chinese enterprises born with globalization genes have grown up. They have embarked on a path opposite to the aforementioned enterprises, which is to endow their products with globalization attributes at the beginning. Some functions and features are globally common, and when entering specific markets, with slight localization adjustments, they can quickly enter the destination country market, saving time and production costs. Whether it is globalization followed by localization, or localization followed by globalization, it reflects the growing desire of Chinese enterprises to develop in the international trade market.

The globalization of enterprises is difficult to achieve overnight, and it is necessary to choose a market to test the water first. Currently, this experimental field is none other than RCEP. Chinese enterprises can make good use of the global high-quality resources gathered in RCEP to inject globalization genes into them. At the same time, under the terms of RCEP rules, they can make good use of the comparative advantages of various countries in the region to carry out better industrial chain supply chain layout. More importantly, they should use the market ladder well to create universal products suitable for global consumers, thereby lowering the threshold of globalization.

We have reason to believe that in RCEP, the world's largest free trade zone, Chinese enterprises will definitely be able to leverage their strengths, optimize the layout of the industrial chain supply chain, and find the maximum common denominator for consumers from all walks of life, accumulating useful experience for products and services to go global. We look forward to the birth of a group of global and world-class enterprises from China in the RCEP region. We wish them a smooth journey and everything they wish for!