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In November last year, President Xi Jinping pointed out in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo that "China is willing to promote the early conclusion of a regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement." In March this year, Premier Li Keqiang also pointed out in the government work report delivered at the second session of the 13th National People's Congress that one of the tasks of the Chinese government in 2019 is to continue to "promote the negotiation of regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement, China Japan South Korea free trade zone and China EU investment agreement". On March 2, 2019, the 7th Ministerial Meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) was held in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The Council of Ministers reiterated the consensus of the 2nd RCEP Leaders' Meeting on promoting the conclusion of the negotiations in 2019, and stated that it will make every effort to achieve this goal. On March 11-12, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles held the 7th 2019 "China and Asia Textile International Forum" in Shanghai ". At the meeting, Ms. Deborah Elms, founder and executive director of the Asian Trade Center, delivered a wonderful speech on the current progress and future direction of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). Excerpts are as follows, share with the textile and garment trade industry colleagues.

RCEP: What you need to know

RCEP, the full name of the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), is a regional economic integration cooperation agreement first proposed by ASEAN countries in 2013 and led by the ten ASEAN countries. Initiated by ASEAN, China and Japan are invited., South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India participate together ("10 6") to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers by opening up markets to each other, establish a free trade agreement for regional economic integration of 16 countries.

At present, the 10 ASEAN countries have signed five free trade agreements with these six dialogue countries, of which Australia and New Zealand have jointly signed a free trade agreement with ASEAN. Respectively:

China-ASEAN Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation

ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

ASEAN-Korea Free Trade Agreement

ASEAN-Australia/New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

ASEAN-India Agreement on Services and Investment

The goal of RCEP is to eliminate internal trade barriers, create and improve a free investment environment, and expand trade in services, involving intellectual property protection, competition policy, e-commerce and other fields. the degree of liberalization will be higher than the current free trade agreements reached between ASEAN and these six countries. In short, RCEP is to highly integrate and cover these five free agreements, and the degree of liberalization and operability must be upgraded.

The unfinished rules of origin will be an important concern.

Just after the 25th round of negotiations, this year the RCEP Negotiating Committee will focus on the discussion and planning of rules of origin in public provisions, which is different from CPTPP, which has strict rules of origin requirements for products that member countries enjoy zero tariffs. For example, the textile and garment industry adopts the rule of starting from yarn (Yarn Forward), that is, purchasing from member countries can enjoy zero tariff preference. One of the key points of the ongoing RCEP negotiations is to achieve a common certificate of origin shared by 16 countries, and Asia will be integrated into the same comprehensive origin. There is no doubt that this will give textile and garment enterprises in these 16 countries. Brings great convenience in terms of suppliers, logistics and customs clearance.

RCEP after 6 years: is there a chance this year?

At present, the negotiation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) has entered the final stage, and it is expected to complete all the discussions this year, ending the seven-year negotiations. There are 16 chapters in the agreement, and there are still 7 discussions in full swing. RCEP negotiations take longer than general agreements, mainly because it will face special challenges to negotiate such a large free trade agreement. In addition, RCEP participating countries are very diverse economies and have certain complexities. Since the countries involved in the agreement are still mainly developing countries, the reduction of tariffs on products in various fields and the openness of service trade by members are definitely inconsistent. Now, RCEP has adopted a more flexible negotiation method, adopting different tax reduction measures for developed countries, developing countries and less developed countries, and gradually and phased opening up. It cannot be ignored that once an agreement is reached, RCEP will be a huge multilateral free trade agreement covering nearly half (45%) of the world's population, accounting for 40% of global trade volume, and accounting for 1/3 of the world's economic output.

At the RCEP leaders' meeting held in Singapore in November last year, the leaders reached an agreement and made a statement indicating that the RCEP negotiations have entered the final stage and called for further efforts to reach this free trade agreement at an early date. In 2019, we can continue to pay attention to the latest progress of RCEP with cautious optimism.