General

At present, in the face of the prominent contradiction between development and conflict, the high-level implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the full play of RCEP will not only have a decisive impact on regional economic integration and regional economic growth, but will also promote global Economic rebalancing. To this end, it is necessary to grasp the general trend, eliminate interference, firmly advance the RCEP process, and work together to build the world's largest free trade area.

RCEP will effectively release regional development potential. The direct driving force of regional economic cooperation comes from the differentiation of factor endowments and the optimization of allocation. The superposition of scale advantages and vitality advantages is conducive to unleashing the huge growth potential of RCEP. Therefore, we must firmly advance the RCEP process. In the next few years, as long as all member states make concerted efforts to advance the RCEP process, an irreversible trend of regional economic integration in East Asia will be formed, the huge economic growth potential will be transformed into real economic competitiveness, and the ASEAN's regional economic development will be further enhanced. important role in the cooperation framework. This requires member states to implement the market opening commitments and rules stipulated in the agreement as soon as possible, and to start negotiations on the relevant follow-up clauses of the RCEP as soon as possible. For example, carry out the review of Article 4.2 of the rules of origin with RCEP member countries to realize the transition from "origin accumulation" to "full accumulation"; integrate the existing five tariff commitment tables to realize the "country-specific tariff reduction" Transition to "Harmonized Tariff Concessions".

As the most economically dynamic free trade area in the world, RCEP is not only conducive to giving full play to the advantages of traditional developed countries, but also conducive to optimizing the allocation of resources including less developed countries, thereby releasing the economic vitality of member states and promoting stable economic growth. In particular, relying on the open and inclusive trade and investment liberalization and facilitation institutional arrangements, China and ASEAN, the two most dynamic and growth potential markets, will be further integrated, thereby stimulating the vitality of the RCEP unified market.

The increasing complementarity of China-ASEAN economy and trade is still a major trend. China and ASEAN have given full play to their respective comparative advantages and continued to deepen economic and trade cooperation with a focus on manufacturing. China's ongoing structural transformation will bring greater market space for ASEAN's economic growth. The market is the scarcest resource, and market opening is the most pragmatic action. China's structural transformation and market opening will provide a huge new market for the world. In the next 10 years or so, China's R&D-focused producer service industry will have room for growth of 20 to 30 percentage points; service consumption will have room for growth of 15 to 20 percentage points; and the urbanization rate will still have at least about 10 percentage points. room for upgrades. This means that China's structural transformation and the release of its opening-up policies will bring important impetus to ASEAN's economic growth, which is dominated by external markets, and become the basic conditions for deepening China-ASEAN cooperation under the RCEP framework.

In the process of strengthening economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN, Hainan Free Trade Port has the conditions to become an important hub for comprehensive strategic cooperation between China and ASEAN. Hainan and ASEAN countries are geographically close and culturally close. They not only have the advantages of facing the forefront of ASEAN, being located in the center of RCEP, and being backed by the super-large Chinese mainland market, but also have the advantages of the highest level of open policy and institutional advantages. To build a free trade port with world influence in Hainan is to give full play to its unique role and build it into a free economic zone for economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN, a demonstration zone for public health and health cooperation, a core area for blue partnership and a comprehensive Special zone for people-to-people exchanges. At present, Hainan is promoting the construction of "headquarters base" for domestic enterprises to invest in the ASEAN market based on Hainan.

Openness is the most important driving force for RCEP, now and in the future.

Seeking mutual benefit and win-win through market opening is an important driving force for RCEP. RCEP adheres to the ASEAN principle of "open regionalism", and achieves mutual benefit, win-win results and shared development in openness and non-exclusivity. For example, while promoting the overall level of openness in the region, RCEP fully considers the different development levels and economic needs of member states, establishes special and differential treatment clauses, and provides transitional arrangements for ASEAN least developed countries, making the level of development low and the economic Smaller countries benefit more from opening up. In the future, openness will be its biggest advantage and driving force, whether it is promoting the construction of the 3.0 version of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area or other regional cooperation frameworks centered on ASEAN.

Optimize the RCEP regional industrial chain supply chain value chain in a high-level opening. At present, RCEP covers major economies in the East Asian production network, and the industrial division of labor in the region is basically formed. From the perspective of regional development trends, to release the growth potential of RCEP and enhance the regional economic competitiveness of RCEP, it is still necessary to optimize the "three chains" in a high level of openness. For example, to play the coordination role of ASEAN, promote the comprehensive opening of agriculture and manufacturing in the region, and use the RCEP rules of origin accumulation to build a closed-loop industrial chain and supply chain in East Asia. According to the actual development situation and comparative advantages of each country, coordinate to promote the opening of service trade in the RCEP region, promote the deep integration of R&D technology and productive services of Japan and South Korea, manufacturing in China, and assembly in ASEAN, and promote the processing and manufacturing in the region to higher added value. Links are extended, and the division of labor status of East Asia in the global value chain is improved as a whole. At the same time, the business environment will be optimized in the alignment of intra-regional rules, forming an important foundation for expanding intra-regional investment.

China's promotion of high-level opening up will form an important driving force for RCEP. At present, China is accelerating the process of institutional opening up, which is characterized by the integration of rules, regulations, management and standards. With China's structural transformation and the improvement of the level of openness to trade in services, it is expected that China's service imports from other RCEP member countries will continue to grow rapidly after the epidemic, especially services such as travel, medical and health, intellectual property, telecommunications, financial insurance and other services will continue to grow. become the focus of imports. At the same time, in cooperation with ASEAN, actively deploy border cross-border economic cooperation zones with the themes of agriculture, digital economy, tourism, medical health, etc., increase border opening policy adjustment and institutional innovation, and create a number of cooperation demonstration zones and free economic zones. .