General

RCEP has been in effect for one year. The construction of the world's largest free trade zone has brought huge new business opportunities to enterprises inside and outside the region.

In the past 2022, China's total imports and exports to the other 14 members of the RCEP, including ASEAN, amounted to 12.95 trillion yuan, up 7.5%, accounting for 30.8% of China's total imports and exports of international trade. The growth rate of China's import and export to other member countries of RCEP has exceeded double digits, and the growth rate of China's import and export to Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos has exceeded 20%. In the first 11 months of 2022, China's total non-financial direct investment in RCEP member countries was 16.43 billion US dollars, up 20.7% year on year; China's actual investment in other RCEP member countries was about 21.9 billion US dollars, an increase of 40.2% year on year. Among them, the actual investment in China of South Korea and Japan, the members of the RCEP, increased by 122.1% and 33.1% respectively.

"The effective implementation of RCEP has sounded the 'strong voice of Asia' of regional integration. Especially against the background of the rising trend of anti-globalization and the sluggish recovery of the world economy, China and all parties have worked together to promote regional economic integration, promote common development and prosperity, and improve global economic governance. The achievements of the first anniversary of the effective implementation of RCEP show that common development is a historical trend, and mutual benefit and win-win results are the aspiration of the people." Xu Ningning, chairman of the RCEP Industrial Cooperation Committee, said that RCEP is an "integrator" of intra-regional economic and trade rules and an unprecedented large-scale regional trade arrangement. With the introduction of more docking policies by countries in the RCEP region and the skillful use of the RCEP rules by enterprises, the potential of RCEP will be further released.

In Xu Ningning's view, industrial cooperation is the top priority to seize the opportunity of opening up RCEP. The RCEP agreement is rich in content, and the key content is tariff reduction. Tariff relief has the greatest impact on the industry. RCEP member states sign agreements through negotiation, mainly to establish new production relations through institutional arrangements. In order to achieve the goal of liberating productivity and promoting economic growth, one of the important links is industrial cooperation. Through industrial docking cooperation, promote industrial structure adjustment and industrial upgrading, and drive economic growth through industrial upgrading.

Xu Ningning said that strengthening RCEP industrial cooperation is conducive to building a new industrial chain with complementary advantages, improving the regional productivity, anti-risk capacity and international trade competitiveness of RCEP, so that regional countries can jointly cope with various challenges. Strengthening industrial cooperation can also bring about "point line area" cooperation among enterprises, which is conducive to expanding and optimizing the scale and structure of trade and investment among countries in the region, and building favorable conditions for the development of enterprises to improve the efficiency and efficiency of cooperation.

Practice has proved that the effective implementation of RCEP has promoted regional industrial cooperation. In 2022, China's import and export of intermediate products to other members of the RCEP reached 8.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.5%, accounting for 67.2% of the total value of China's import and export of international trade to other member countries in the same period. From the perspective of major commodities, China's export of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products to other members of the RCEP increased by 13.2% and 20.7% respectively, of which electronic components, batteries and automobiles increased by 15%, 50.3% and 71.6% respectively. China also imported 46.2%, 10.4% and 10.2% of mechanical and electrical products, metal ore and ore, and consumer goods from other members of the RCEP; The import value of energy products such as crude oil and natural gas increased rapidly.

"We should strive to promote industrial docking and cooperation in a practical and detailed way. For the competent government departments of the RCEP countries, we should actively promote the docking, coordination and cooperation of industrial planning and industrial policies, and take the fields and industries of high concern and strong complementarity of all parties as the entry point. All parties should strengthen and accelerate the cooperation in digital economy, green economy, connectivity and other areas, and jointly promote the development of regional SMEs. All parties should pay special attention to the development of the RCEP region Service trade cooperation, especially deepening cooperation in cross-border e-commerce, financial institutions, law firms, accounting firms, exhibition advertising enterprises, logistics port enterprises, technical design and research institutions, vocational training schools and other service industries. " Xu Ningning said that the most important and direct purpose of the implementation of RCEP is to promote the cooperation and development of enterprises in opening up, so as to realize the economic growth of the region and its countries.

Whether we can make good use of the favorable conditions for the implementation and effectiveness of RCEP, and then find the right entry point and focus to take business actions is the primary issue for many enterprises to develop internationally. To this end, Xu Ningning put forward four suggestions:

First, enterprises should seize the opportunities brought by the institutional innovation of regional opening and implement innovative management. The essence of entrepreneurs is innovation. In the implementation of the RCEP rules that are beneficial to consolidating and extending the regional supply chain industry chain, enterprises should consciously grasp and use the rules, innovate their business ideas, business models and methods, and develop new ways and space for development; We should pay attention to and participate in the industry docking and industrial cooperation of RCEP member countries to improve the level of international cooperation and win the market with high-quality products and services. The enterprise's actions can not only gain dividends in the implementation of RCEP, but also highlight its value and contribution in this major opening initiative.

Second, make good use of free trade agreements as an important means of operation for enterprises to compete and cooperate internationally. In the face of the instability and uncertainty of the global economy, more and more countries have adopted bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTA) to deal with it. For this reason, enterprises should implement business strategies and business strategies with the convenience of market development brought by these open market free trade agreements. This requires enterprises to strengthen the FTA awareness in their business ideas, strengthen the research on the FTA and develop business plans, and plan to use the FTA well in their business, For example, the Indian market is developed by overlapping the use of RCEP, the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement, the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, and the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement, and the EU market is developed by using RCEP, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, and the Vietnam - EU Free Trade Agreement.

Third, enterprises should grasp the economic and trade complementarities, trade structure, industrial structure, investment structure, consensus reached by the leaders and governments of the RECP countries and the action plans being implemented among the RCEP member countries, so as to better implement the operation. At present, if Chinese enterprises go to ASEAN countries to invest and select industries, they can consider: the relevant industries encouraged by ASEAN countries, the industries consistent with the economic and trade cooperation plan formulated by China-ASEAN countries, the service industries related to the increased demand for trade and investment, the industries related to the development of resources, the industries related to the repair of the industrial chain, the industries related to the development of the digital economy, and the industries related to meeting their daily consumption, etc, And industries that can set up factories in ASEAN countries to produce and sell products to a broader international trade market.

Fourth, the parties concerned have made great efforts to support and assist enterprises in making good use of the FTA. Relevant government departments and business associations should further increase the promotion of RCEP training and provide relevant consulting services for enterprises to make good use of the RCEP rules; Relevant national government departments of RCEP shall provide convenient conditions for the exchange of personnel and goods; We should organically combine the government's inter-country policy communication, facility connectivity, capital financing and other cooperation with the concern and participation of enterprises, and jointly help promote the construction of industrial cooperation parks such as "two countries and two parks"; The government and the media should build a favorable political relationship and social atmosphere between countries for enterprise cooperation. Local governments and industry organizations should promote the "double cycle" economic development by helping enterprises develop in the implementation of RCEP.

"Under the influence of economic and industrial laws, the business community of each member country of RCEP is generally optimistic about the business opportunities of RCEP, and transnational enterprises outside the region have also increased their investment in the RCEP region. RCEP reflects the development needs and trends of multilateral cooperation and free trade in the global economy, and will provide support for the growth of the world economy and make contributions to the RCEP region." Xu Ningning said that the achievement and effectiveness of RCEP is not easy, Member States should cherish this important cooperation agreement and actively implement it. It is believed that the regional economic integration promoted by RCEP implementation will benefit regional national economies and global economies with the joint efforts of RCEP countries in 2023.