General

In the past year, against the backdrop of the changing international situation and the continued downturn of the global economy, RCEP has fully released the mechanism dividend, effectively deepened the economic links between Asian economies, effectively boosted the confidence of regional trade and investment in Asia, further strengthened the resilience of the intra regional industrial chain and supply chain, and injected new momentum into the construction of an intra regional unified market and the realization of global prosperity and development.

On January 1, 2023, the first anniversary of the signing and entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). In the past year, against the backdrop of the changing international situation and the continued downturn of the global economy, RCEP has fully released the mechanism dividend, effectively deepened the economic links between Asian economies, effectively boosted the confidence of regional trade and investment in Asia, further strengthened the resilience of the intra regional industrial chain and supply chain, and injected new momentum into the construction of an intra regional unified market and the realization of global prosperity and development. Facing the future, RCEP member countries will fully release their potential and complement each other's advantages, promote the deep integration of regional value chains, and make greater contributions to regional and global economic and trade development.

Vigorously promote regional economic and trade cooperation

From January 1, 2022, RCEP will officially enter into force for 10 countries, including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia; from February 1, it will enter into force for South Korea; from March 18, it will enter into force for Malaysia; and from May 1, it will enter into force for Myanmar. At present, the number of effective members among the 15 signatory members has reached 13. Since the RCEP came into force, member states have held joint meetings in many fields to negotiate and promote the implementation of the agreement. At the same time, the RCEP Industrial Cooperation Committee was established to promote international trade, investment and industrial cooperation.

It is worth noting that RCEP established free trade relations between China and Japan as well as Korea and Japan for the first time. From January to June 2022, the bilateral import and export trade volume between China and Japan and South Korea and Japan is respectively 20.3 trillion yen and 5.5 trillion yen, up 10.6% and 25.5% respectively from the same period in 2021. In addition, under the framework of RCEP, China, Japan and the ROK have carried out international trade cooperation in machinery manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, optoelectronic equipment manufacturing and other fields, laying a foundation for the three countries' regional value chain cooperation in high-end manufacturing industries such as new technologies and new energy.

"One year since the formal entry into force of RCEP, it has brought huge economic benefits and higher social welfare levels to member countries." Gao Lingyun, director of the International Investment Research Office of the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that, in the field of trade, the 13 approved member countries have successively taken tariff reduction and exemption measures to varying degrees, which has promoted the growth of trade between them; In the field of investment, the agreement introduced issues such as investment promotion, investment protection, investment facilitation and liberalization, and all members committed to using a negative list, which enhanced the attractiveness of investment and the protection of intellectual property rights; In the field of industrial chain supply chain, RCEP not only expands the regional network of the original industrial chain supply chain, but also further enhances the stickiness and stability of the industrial chain supply chain; In terms of social welfare level, under the condition of equal expenditure, RCEP member countries can obtain consumer goods that are more in line with their own needs, greatly improving the welfare level of the people in member countries.

"The formal entry into force of RCEP plays an important role in maintaining the multilateral trading system and promoting regional economic cooperation." Liu Junhong, director of the Globalization Research Center of the China Academy of Modern International Relations, said that a series of arrangements represented by the cumulative rules of origin of RCEP are effectively reducing production costs in the region, improving trade efficiency, and strengthening cooperation in the regional industrial chain supply chain. Since its official entry into force one year ago, RCEP has not only promoted the continuous adjustment and expansion of the overall trade structure among member countries, but also further expanded the overall trade scale of RCEP to other regions. For example, the container traffic volume from East Asian ports to North America has reached a historical high.

China has made great contributions in keeping its promise

"RCEP is not only a free trade agreement with the largest population and largest economic and trade scale in the world, but also a comprehensive, modern, high-quality and mutually beneficial free trade agreement." Gao Lingyun believes that the official entry into force of RCEP is the result of the joint efforts of member countries, reflecting comprehensiveness, progressiveness and inclusiveness.

——The RCEP covers a comprehensive range of fields. The main section includes not only trade and investment facilitation and related opening commitments in traditional areas such as goods trade, service trade and investment, but also a large number of new trade rules involving post border issues such as intellectual property, e-commerce, competition policy and government procurement.

——RCEP explores a series of high standard economic and trade rules. In terms of intellectual property rights, there are 83 articles, including not only trademarks, patents, copyrights, but also transparency, anti unfair competition, technical assistance and other topics. In the field of trade in services, RCEP members promised to achieve a negative list within six years after the agreement came into force. The level of openness not only exceeded that of the WTO, but also exceeded that of the existing ASEAN+1 Free Trade Agreement. In terms of e-commerce rules, RCEP is the multilateral e-commerce rule with the widest scope and the largest number of members reached in the Asia Pacific region, and it is also the e-commerce agreement with the highest level of participation of China at present.

——RCEP fully demonstrates inclusiveness. In full consideration of the different development levels and economic needs of member countries, a certain transition period or exception clause is given to less developed member countries. RCEP has set up a transition period of market opening for about 20 years, gradually realizing zero tariff for 90% of taxable products, and provides a transition period for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and other member countries to improve their domestic legislation and regulatory systems.

"RCEP strives to find a balance between high standards and diversity, creating opportunities for the transfer and restructuring of the regional industrial chain supply chain." Liu Junhong said that RCEP is a multilateral cooperation framework that fully takes into account diversity. By unifying tariff commitments, rules of origin, trade and investment facilitation and other trade rules, RCEP has fully integrated the "fragmented" economic and trade institutional arrangements in East Asia, that is, 27 trade arrangements and 44 investment agreements signed and implemented by 15 member countries. In the face of different interest demands of member states, RCEP has set up some progressive institutional arrangements, that is, each member state can arrange the tax reduction range and negative list process according to its own situation. In addition, RCEP stipulated some exemption clauses for special and differential treatment in dispute settlement, reflecting the spirit of fairness, justice, inclusiveness and mutual benefit.

China has always been an important participant and active promoter of RCEP. In the past year, in order to successfully implement RCEP, six departments including the Ministry of Commerce of China jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on the High Quality Implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, implemented the service trade opening commitments and investment negative list commitments in the agreement, and promoted enterprises to make better use of policy dividends. From July to August 2022, the RCEP Industrial Cooperation Committee and more than 10 national business associations in China signed the Strategic Cooperation Memorandum, agreeing to jointly help the new development of relevant industry cooperation between China and other RCEP member countries.

"In the past year, China has kept its promise and has made a lot of contributions to RCEP." Gao Lingyun said that, first, on the first day of the official entry into force of RCEP, China began to fully implement tariff concessions; Second, with the help of the multilateral cooperation platform, help other member countries to get familiar with the preferential policies and facilitation rules in the agreement, and share the development opportunities of the Chinese market; Third, we have helped member countries with relatively backward development stages to carry out development capacity building and provided more technical and financial support; The fourth is to continuously promote the upgrading of RCEP through the implementation of institutional opening.

It is expected to project dividends to the world

Gu Qingyang, associate professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said that in the context of the world economic difficulties, RCEP injected strong growth momentum into emerging markets. The latest report of the Asian Development Bank raised the forecast of economic growth in Southeast Asia from 5.1% to 5.5% in 2022, which partly reflects the expectation of RCEP to stimulate the economy of ASEAN countries.

Peter Drisdale, director of the East Asia Economic Research Institute of the Australian National University, said that in the first year of its entry into force, RCEP has shown the importance of filling the gap in free trade agreements, boosting regional trade and strengthening regional supply chains, and has the potential to project the dividends of Asian international trade to the world as a platform.

"The formal entry into force of RCEP has brought opportunities for the development of the world economy full of conflicts, problems and challenges." Gao Lingyun said that, first, the formal entry into force of RCEP has injected confidence into free trade, multilateralism and regional economic integration; Second, RCEP has released tangible dividends, provided stability and certainty for the regional economy and the world economy, and alleviated the impact of unilateralism and trade protectionism on the global economy; Third, RCEP covers economies at different stages of development, and member countries have huge potential for international trade development, which can complement each other's advantages; Fourthly, RCEP has explored many innovative systems, including the rules of cumulative origin, which can provide new models for countries at different stages of development to carry out cooperation and global economic and trade cooperation; Fifthly, RCEP's solutions to a series of disputes can also provide an important reference for the global governance system.

"In view of the diversity of economic development in Asia, there is still room for further improvement of RCEP." Liu Junhong believes that, on the one hand, compared with the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, the level of international trade and investment liberalization needs to be further improved, and internal tariff barriers need to be further reduced; On the other hand, Member States need to follow the trend of technological innovation and industrial progress, such as digital transformation and green energy transformation, negotiate new trade liberalization rules and adjust the direction of regional economic cooperation in a timely manner. In addition, how to improve the system so that members of developing countries can better participate in regional production networks, especially through complex value chain trade to promote economic development, is a subject that needs continuous research.

Gao Lingyun believes that the upgrading of RCEP can be started from the following aspects: First, to increase transparency, not only to let RCEP members understand the rules of the agreement, but also to let economies outside of RCEP understand the trade preferential policies of RCEP. Second, improve the consultation and communication mechanism. On the one hand, as the impact of the epidemic fades away, increase offline business promotion activities to further enhance the influence of RCEP; On the other hand, increase the coverage of RCEP rules and new rules in the field of service trade and digital economy. The third is to improve the quality of the mechanism, accelerate the implementation and upgrade negotiations in due time, and dynamically adjust and improve the existing system terms according to the actual situation. The fourth is to adopt appropriate ways to expand the scope. In the face of the accession applications of some countries, RCEP member countries need to discuss the procedures for the inclusion of new members, and finally find an appropriate way.