RCEP helps promote the high-quality development of China's economy

　　RCEP helps promote the high-quality development of China's economy (International Forum)

　　RCEP helps stabilize the supply chain of the industrial chain, improve the level of participation in the global and regional value chains, and accelerate the formation of a new development pattern with domestic and international cycles as the main body and mutual promotion of domestic and international double cycles.

　　On January 1, the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (RCEP) formally entered into force for 6 ASEAN member states including Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.

This will help reduce the uncertainty faced by the regional economic recovery and help promote the high-quality development of China's economy.

　　The multilateral trading system and regional free trade agreements are the two wheels that drive economic globalization and the liberalization and facilitation of international trade and investment.

The 20 years that China has joined the World Trade Organization and continued to expand its opening up are also 20 years of exploring the signing of free trade agreements with foreign businesses and actively promoting the construction of free trade zones.

In order to promote a high-level opening up to the outside world, China proposes to implement a free trade zone promotion strategy and build a global high-standard free trade zone network.

RCEP is the nineteenth free trade agreement signed by China and the largest free trade agreement in the world. It will play an important role in expanding China's high-level opening up.

　　China has achieved many breakthroughs in RCEP.

In the field of investment, for the first time under the free trade agreement, it has made an open commitment in the form of a negative list and pre-access national treatment; in the field of e-commerce, it has made regulations on data flow and information storage for the first time; in the field of trade remedies, it has been the first in the free trade The agreement includes a "prohibition of zeroing" clause; in the field of intellectual property, for the first time infringements in the digital environment are included in the scope of implementation procedures for civil remedies and criminal remedies.

China’s simultaneous establishment of free trade relations with Japan and South Korea under the RCEP framework not only lays the foundation for a higher level of China-Japan-Korea free trade area negotiations, but also helps to actively promote access to higher standards such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Free trade agreement.

　　RCEP member countries are China's important economic and trade partners.

In 2020, China's exports to and imports from RCEP member states will account for approximately 27% and 38% of China's total exports and imports, respectively.

During the same period, investment from RCEP member countries accounted for more than 10% of China's use of foreign capital.

RCEP cuts tariffs, expands market access, and adopts trade and investment facilitation measures to promote the free flow and efficient agglomeration of production factors, which will promote the formation of an integrated market, make China’s trade and investment with RCEP member countries closer, and help build A virtuous and sustainable international economic cycle system.

　　The characteristics, high-quality products, advanced technologies, and services of RCEP member countries can enter the Chinese market more freely and conveniently, and become an important boost to meet the domestic consumption upgrade needs and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

Through RCEP's higher standards and wider opening up, domestic reforms can be accelerated, and the blocking points that affect the domestic economic cycle can be further smoothed out.

RCEP applies the rules of accumulation of origin, allowing the value of origin to be calculated cumulatively within member states, greatly reducing the threshold for enterprises to enjoy preferential tax rates, and helping enterprises to rely on the comparative advantages of various countries to flexibly purchase production materials and develop investment layouts in the region. Improve international competitiveness.

RCEP creates a favorable environment for e-commerce facilitation, builds a platform, supports and helps small and medium-sized enterprises to make better use of the results of the agreement.

　　Looking forward to the future, RCEP will become an important platform for the integration of China's domestic and foreign trade, the introduction of foreign capital and the coordinated development of foreign investment, further enhancing the connectivity between China and RCEP member countries' markets, resources and factors, stabilizing the supply chain of the industrial chain, and increasing global and regional value The level of participation in the chain will accelerate the formation of a new development pattern with domestic and international cycles as the mainstay and mutual promotion of domestic and international cycles.

　　Gu Xueming (The author is the Dean of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce)