General

In the first 10 months of this year, China's international trade imports and exports to the other 14 member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) increased by 8.4%, continuing to show the advantages of regional trade liberalization of RCEP.

On November 29, at the High Quality Development Forum of China's Cross border E-Commerce Industry hosted by the Commercial Industry Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and hosted by the RCEP Expert Pool of the CCPIT System and the Executive Committee of the Cross border E-Commerce Raceway, Zou Ruirui, Head of the Legal Department of the Nanjing Branch of CCPIT and the first batch of experts in the RCEP Expert Pool of the CCPIT System, said that the effectiveness of RCEP has played a positive role in promoting the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry. In RCEP, the agreements on tariff reduction and trade facilitation bring new opportunities to China's cross-border e-commerce enterprises.

According to Zou Ruirui, all countries made tariff commitments through RCEP to reduce tariffs on goods trade between member countries. Cross border e-commerce enterprises can use RCEP tariff concessions to reduce the cost of imported goods in international trade and improve price competitiveness. "For products with high tax margins, tariff savings will be huge." Zou Ruirui said that, therefore, cross-border e-commerce enterprises can make rational use of valuable tariff data under the RCEP framework in combination with the actual situation of the industry, lock in products with high tax differentials, and effectively reduce enterprise costs.

Zou Ruirui believes that RCEP tariff concessions can also help cross-border e-commerce enterprises maintain long-term customers and reduce the cost of cooperation risks. Under the RCEP mechanism, the stability and predictability of member countries' tariff commitments on imported goods in international trade have been legally guaranteed. Enterprises need not worry that cross-border e-commerce sales may not be sustained by customers for a long time due to various price problems.

The RCEP rules of origin can also reduce costs for cross-border e-commerce enterprises. From the perspective of production, RCEP implements uniform rules of origin throughout the region, which will greatly reduce trade compliance costs and production costs. From the perspective of industrial chain, the reduction of suppliers' production costs may lead to the reduction of procurement costs of cross-border e-commerce enterprises.

In addition to cost, logistics delivery is also a challenge for cross-border e-commerce enterprises. "If the problem of goods transportation cannot be solved well in the process of cross-border e-commerce online sales, it is very easy to generate a 'package tsunami', which will impact the entire logistics system." Zou Ruirui said.

He said that the use of RCEP trade facilitation mechanism can shorten the logistics delivery cycle. On the one hand, the advanced mechanism of pre arrival processing and customs declaration of goods can not only allow the electronic submission of documents and information required for the import of goods before the arrival of goods, so as to speed up the release of goods upon arrival, but also can use information technology based on international standards to support customs procedures, allow the submission of electronic documents, and speed up the transmission of information and data before the arrival of goods.

On the other hand, in customs inspection and clearance operations, some provisions of RCEP are highly compatible with the cross-border e-commerce model. For example, the customs inspection will be based on the risk analysis of the enterprise, and does not require all goods to be inspected on site; The release time after the arrival of goods shall not exceed 48 hours as far as possible; The release time of perishable goods and express goods upon arrival shall not exceed 6 hours as far as possible.

"For example, the RCEP member countries of some ASEAN countries have not been able to realize the release of express goods within 6 hours after arrival, but they have all formulated specific achievable schedules." Zou Ruirui suggested that in the future, if cross-border e-commerce enterprises make strategic plans to enter a certain market of RCEP, they can focus on such timelines when assessing the level of logistics and facilitation.

In terms of supplier selection, cross-border e-commerce enterprises often face problems. Zou Ruirui introduced that in the cross-border e-commerce field, "quality driven" buyers have high requirements for the quality of goods, and they usually use the so-called supplier rating and other methods to strictly screen, resulting in a very limited selection of suppliers. If the cumulative rule in RCEP is used, the domestic raw materials can be used for production, and the goods originating from other effective member countries of RCEP can also be purchased. At present, except the Philippines and Indonesia, RCEP has entered into force for 13 countries. Under the cumulative rule, the selection range of suppliers is expanded, and the flexibility of the supply chain will be greatly enhanced.

In addition, the third-party invoice system and the back-to-back certificate of origin are also powerful tools for cross-border e-commerce enterprises to explore the RCEP market. The former supports Chinese cross-border e-commerce enterprises to open the whole international trade market in the form of intermediate trade in the RCEP region. Specifically, it means that enterprises purchase goods from one RCEP member country and obtain a certificate of origin, and then directly send them to another RCEP member country and reduce tariffs through the certificate of origin during import customs clearance. The latter can benefit enterprises that build international or regional e-commerce overseas warehouses. After a large number of goods are imported from other member countries by overseas warehouses built in the RCEP region, a new certificate of origin will be issued based on the certificate of origin issued by the exporting country, that is, back-to-back certificate of origin, to prove that the goods still retain the qualification of origin. After that, the goods are divided into other member countries according to the market and e-commerce platform, and relevant goods can enjoy preferential tariff treatment by virtue of back-to-back certificate of origin when imported into member countries.

"The third-party invoice system solves the data conflict between the original invoice and the third-party invoice and the problem of confidentiality of cross-border e-commerce enterprises' data, which should be reasonably used by cross-border e-commerce enterprises." Zou Ruirui said, "Back to back certificate of origin provides strong support for international trade enterprises in RCEP member countries that are engaged in international or regional e-commerce overseas warehouses."