After 8 years of negotiations, The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade partnership agreement covering the largest population, the most extensive region with the most diverse members has just concluded.
The 4th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Leaders’ Meeting was held on November 15. The 10 ASEAN countries and China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand formally signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), marking the global largest free trade agreement was officially reached. The signing of the RCEP is an important step for regional countries to take concrete actions to safeguard the multilateral trading system and build an open world economy. It is of symbolic significance for deepening regional economic integration and stabilizing the global economy.
RCEP was initiated by ASEAN in 2012 and invited dialogue partner countries including China, Japan to participate. It aims to establish a free trade agreement with a unified market by reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The agreement covers a market with a population of 2.2 billion, accounting for nearly 30% of the world, a GDP of USD 26.2 trillion, and nearly 28% of global trade, making it the world’s largest free-trade zone.
The signing of the RCEP is of great significance to the economic and trade cooperation between regional countries, especially the economic recovery under the epidemic. Taking China, Japan and South Korea as an example, the epidemic has had varying degrees of impact on the economies of the three countries, and the signing of RCEP can not only promote the economic and trade exchanges between the three countries, but also help advance the process of future China-Japan-Korea free trade area negotiations. According to the “Nihon Keizai Shimbun”, the signing of RCEP means that Japan and China and South Korea have signed the first free trade agreement. In the future, tariffs on automobiles, auto parts and chemical products exported from Japan to China will be greatly reduced or cancelled; Tariffs on sake and shochu exported from Japan to China and South Korea will be gradually eliminated, and tariffs on Shaoxing wine and rice wine exported from China and South Korea to Japan will also be gradually eliminated. This is particularly important for the economic and trade cooperation between the three countries in the “post-epidemic era”.
Xu Xiujun, director of the International Political Economy Research Office of the Institute of World Economics and Politics believes: the signing of RCEP will not only help regional economic integration but will also have an important impact on the world economic and trade pattern. RCEP will cover the two largest markets with the most growth potential in the world, one is the Chinese market with 1.4 billion people, and the other is the ASEAN market with more than 600 million people. At the same time, the 15 member states of RCEP are not only an important engine for economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region but also an important source of global growth.
RCEP Agreement Parties
All ten members of ASEAN
Brunei
Cambodia
Indonesia
Laos
Malaysia
Myanmar
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
All FIVE additional members
China
Japan
South Korea
Australia
New Zealand
The Summary of the RCEP Agreement：Download
The Legal Text of the RCEP Agreement：Download
