[ad_1]
On November 15, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) was officially signed.
China’s Ministry of Finance stated, The RCEP agreement has achieved fruitful results in liberalizing trade in goods. Tariff reduction among members is based on a commitment to immediately reduce tariffs to zero and reduce tariffs to zero within ten years. The free trade zone is expected to achieve significant phased construction results in a relatively short period of time. For the first time, China and Japan reached a bilateral tariff reduction agreement, achieving a historic breakthrough. The agreement will help promote the realization of a high level of trade liberalization in the region.
On the same day, Wang Shouwen, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy Representative for International Trade, said in a media interview that China-Japan free trade relations were recently established through RCEP, and that China’s trade coverage with partners free trade will increase from the current 27% to 35.%.
China and Japan reached a bilateral tariff concession agreement for the first time
The RCEP negotiations officially began in November 2012 and covered more than ten fields, including small and medium-sized enterprises, investment, economic and technical cooperation, and trade in goods and services.
Current member states of the RCEP agreement include 10 ASEAN countries, 15 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The RCEP agreement brings the original bilateral free trade agreements between 15 countries into a unified framework. Once the agreement is signed, 15 countries will respect common rates, rules of origin, access to investment, intellectual property rights, competition policy and electronic commerce.
On November 15, China’s Ministry of Finance declared that tariff reduction among members will be based on a commitment to immediately reduce tariffs to zero tariffs and reduce tariffs to zero tariffs within ten years. The free trade zone is expected to achieve significant phased construction results in a relatively short period of time. . For the first time, China and Japan reached a bilateral tariff reduction agreement, achieving a historic breakthrough. The agreement will help promote the realization of a high level of trade liberalization in the region.
On the same day, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy Representative for International Trade Negotiations, Wang Shouwen, said in a media interview that the RCEP has added two important free trade relations between China, Japan and Japan and South Korea, which the degree of free trade in the region has significantly increased. According to calculations by international think tanks, in 2025, RCEP is expected to drive export growth from member countries 10.4% higher than the baseline.
What impact does RCEP signing have on Sino-Japanese trade? Li Chunding, a professor at the China Agricultural University, told the “Daily Economic News” reporter that among many bilateral relationships, RCEP has the greatest impact on the Sino-Japanese economy and trade because both China and Japan are very large economies. . There is no bilateral free trade agreement. This encourages our Chinese products and companies to move to Japan, and will bring greater growth potential to Sino-Japanese trade as a whole.
According to Li Chunding’s previous calculations, when India did not join and the remaining 15 economies reached the RCEP deal, Japan benefited from the deal, which is not much different from India’s participation. Specifically, Japan’s social welfare will increase by 0.777%, GDP will increase by 1.287%, employment in the manufacturing sector will increase by 6.464%, trade will increase by 12.845%, exports will increase by 14.388% and imports will increase by 11,517%.
Japan is China’s fourth trading partner. In the first ten months of this year, the total value of Sino-Japanese trade was 1.8 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.5%, accounting for 6.9% of the total value of China’s foreign trade . Among them, exports to Japan were 809.17 billion yuan, basically the same as in the same period last year; Japan’s imports were 986.7 billion yuan, an increase of 2.7%; the trade deficit with Japan was 177.53 billion yuan, an increase of 17.1%.
RCEP Lays Grounds for China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Zone Negotiations
The successful signing of RCEP also played a role in promoting the China-Japan-Korea free trade area negotiations.
Li Chunding told the “Daily Business News” reporter that overall, the RCEP has brought opportunities to the China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Area and has laid a good foundation for the China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Area negotiations. , which is beneficial to China and Japan. The Korea Free Trade Zone has formed a higher level of cooperation.
Professor Yuko Fukagawa, vice dean and professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University in Japan, once said that China, Japan and South Korea have great demands for cooperation in the field of digital economy. Japan, China and South Korea have promoted industrial digitization in different ways. South Korea is very successful in communication technology, providing citizens with highly efficient administrative services; Japan has more technical advantages in hardware like robots and big data. Therefore, Japan, China and South Korea should share some technologies and knowledge to promote China-Japan-Korea digital economic cooperation.
At the China-Korea Joint Economic and Trade Committee meeting in August this year, China and South Korea agreed to move forward in negotiating a China-Japan-Korea free trade agreement. Before this, China and Japan also proposed to accelerate negotiations on the China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Area to contribute to regional and global economic recovery.
South Korea is China’s fifth largest trading partner. In the first ten months of this year, the total trade value between China and South Korea was 1.62 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.8%, accounting for 6.2% of the total value of foreign trade from China. Among them, exports to South Korea were 634.26 billion yuan, an increase of 1.4%; South Korea’s imports were 987.44 billion yuan, an increase of 0.4%; the trade deficit with South Korea was 353.18 billion yuan, a decrease of 1.3%.
Both Japan and South Korea are important trading partners of China. After the signing of the RCEP, more than 90% of products and services will gradually enter the Chinese market without tariffs, and domestic people will be able to enjoy a wider range of goods and services at lower prices.
Cover Image Source: Photography
Consultation in real time of the new global epidemic of pneumonia
