China has joined the world's largest free trade zone, with over 90 percent of goods or zero tariffs, affecting one third of the world's population

According to CCTV news, the fourth regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) leaders' meeting was held by video on the morning of November 15. 15 leaders of China, said today we witness regional comprehensive economic partnership agreements (RCEP) signed, as members of the largest population in the world to participate in, the most diverse structure, development potential is the largest free trade area, it is not just a regional cooperation in east Asia landmark achievements, extremely, the victory of multilateralism and free trade will add something new to promote regional development and prosperity of the kinetic energy, new power achieve restorative growth for the world economy. Under the current international situation, the signing of the RCEP after eight years of negotiations gives people light and hope amid the gloom. It shows that multilateralism and free trade are the right path and still represent the right direction for the world economy and mankind.

The RCEP negotiations, formally launched in November 2012, cover a dozen areas including small and medium-sized enterprises, investment, economic and technological cooperation, and trade in goods and services.

After three leaders' meetings, 19 ministerial meetings and 28 rounds of formal negotiations, major progress has been made in RCEP negotiations in 2019. On November 4 of that year, the third RCEP Leaders' Meeting was held in Bangkok, Thailand and issued a joint statement, announcing that the 15 member states had concluded all text negotiations and virtually all market access negotiations, and would start the review of the legal text with a view to signing the agreement in 2020. India has temporarily stayed out of the agreement because "important issues have not been resolved".

Covering one third of the world's population

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP. According to CCTV finance and economics, the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement is 2012 by 10 asean countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, brunei, Cambodia, Laos, myanmar, Vietnam), invited China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand 16 parties make joint agreement, by cutting tariffs and non-tariff barriers, open markets to each other established between 16 countries, the implementation of regional economic integration, unified market free trade agreement. In addition, through the connection of this agreement, China and Japan, which did not have bilateral trade mechanism before, will have further development in economic and trade relations.

The REGIONAL Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will be an important mechanism to safeguard global trade liberalization against the backdrop of rising protectionism and a series of trade disputes.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) covers one-third of the world's population, including half of the world's population if India is included, according to yonhap news agency quoted on the ministry's website.

Indeed, India, which has been involved in the RCEP negotiations since they were formally launched, signalled its intention to retreat last year. Despite Japan's attempts to bring it back to the negotiating table, India, for its own domestic reasons, did not come back.

According to the rules, after the RCEP comes into force, countries other than members cannot apply to join the agreement for a certain period of time, but in this case, India has been granted immunity. With Japan's support, the 15-member club is reportedly planning to draft a separate document that would allow India to opt in at any time.

According to China Business News, Shen Minghui, secretary-general of the ASIA-PACIFIC Economic Cooperation and East Asia Cooperation Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the "living agreement", which can also be said to include another meaning, is to welcome India's return anytime and anywhere with an open agreement.

India's GDP was hit hard year-on-year in the april-June period, with the economy shrinking by a record 23.9%. Looking ahead to 2020, the IMF expects India's economy to contract by 4.5 per cent in real terms, while S&P forecasts a 5 per cent decline. In the wake of the epidemic, India has gone from being a "top student" of growth to the current level of economic growth, which is a disservice to India's ambition to open up. He explained that the outbreak has also caused some tension in India's domestic economy, including in the agricultural sector. In such circumstances, "We need to fully understand India's concerns" if it rashly joins such a large competitive RCEP market.

In May, Wang Shouwen, vice-minister of Commerce and deputy representative for international trade negotiations, responded that "RCEP members have studied India's concerns in accordance with the requirements of last year's leaders' meeting and explored ways to deal with these issues in a mutually satisfactory way. Not long ago, the 15 parties, through the chairman of the RCEP Trade Negotiation Committee, sent an invitation to India to return to negotiations. In this regard, China welcomes India's return to negotiations at an appropriate time."

Over 90% of goods may be included in the zero-tariff range

The RCEP negotiation builds on the previous "10+3" cooperation and further expands its scope to "10+5". China has already established a free trade area with the ten ASEAN countries, and the free trade area has covered over 90 percent of tax items on both sides with zero tariff.

According to China Times, Zhu Yin, associate professor of public Administration at the School of International Relations, said, "The RCEP negotiations will undoubtedly take more steps to reduce tariff barriers, and we will not rule out that 95 percent or even more products will be included in the zero-tariff range in the future. The market space will also be larger, for foreign trade enterprises is a major policy positive."

Statistics show that in the first three quarters of this year, trade volume between China and ASEAN reached us $481.81 billion, up 5% year on year. Asean has historically become China's largest trading partner, and China's investment in ASEAN has increased 76.6% year on year.

In addition, the agreement also contributes to the construction of supply chains and value chains in the region. Vice minister of commerce and international trade negotiations deputy representatives Wang Shouwen pointed out that, in the region to form a unified free trade zone, helps to form local area according to the comparative advantage, supply chain and value chain in the region of the commodity flow, technology flow, service flow, capital flow, including personnel across borders can have very big advantage, forming the trade creation effect.

Take the clothing industry. If Vietnam exports its garments to China now, it will have to pay tariffs, and if it joins the FTA, the regional value chain will come into play. Import wool from Australia, New Zealand, China signed a free-trade agreement because, so the future may be duty-free imports of wool, imports in China after woven fabrics, the fabric may be exported to Vietnam, Vietnam again after use this cloth clothing exports to South Korea, Japan, China and other countries, these might be duty-free, thus promotes the development of the local textile and garment industry, solve the employment, on exports is also very good.

In fact, all enterprises in the region can participate in the accumulation of the value of the place of origin, which is of great benefit to the promotion of mutual trade and investment within the region.

Therefore, if more than 90% of the RCEP products are gradually exempted from tariffs after the RCEP signing, it will greatly boost the economic vitality of more than a dozen members, including China.

Background information: East Asian economic integration process and RCEP negotiations key node

Asean, founded in 1967, is the first sub-regional organization in East Asia to embark on the process of integration. As early as 1992, ASEAN put forward the idea of establishing a free trade area, with the aim of enhancing the level of cooperation and economic integration through promoting trade liberalization and enhancing the overall economic strength of ASEAN. However, with the economic and social development and taking into account the actual level of development and needs of southeast Asian countries, asean countries generally believe that an ASEAN community similar to the European Union must be established if the security and stability of the region are to be truly guaranteed.

In October 2003, the 9th ASEAN Summit adopted the Declaration on ASEAN Compact II, declaring that the ASEAN Community will be established by 2020 with the security community, economic community and socio-cultural community as the three pillars. In January 2007, the 12th ASEAN Summit decided to bring forward the completion of asean community building to 2015. In the same year, the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint was adopted.

In February 2009, the 14th ASEAN Summit adopted the Declaration on the asean Community 2009-2015 Roadmap and relevant documents, putting forward strategic vision, specific goals and action plans for the asean Community by 2015.

In November 2011, at the 19th ASEAN Summit, Asia began planning another regional cooperation, the Southeast Asia Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

In late August 2012, at the 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting and related meetings, the economic ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries and 6 partner countries agreed to start negotiations on a 16-country free trade agreement, the Southeast Asia Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), by the end of 2012. In November of the same year, at the 21st ASEAN Summit, the leaders of the 10 ASEAN countries and six dialogue partners -- Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand -- announced the launch of RCEP negotiations. The negotiations involve trade in goods, trade in services and investment. In addition to market access, they also involve negotiations on various rules.

In May 2013, government officials from the 16 participating countries began detail-based negotiations in Darussalam, Brunei, with a goal of concluding the talks by the end of 2015. In September of the same year, representatives of the 16 countries held the second round of RCEP negotiations in Australia, which went smoothly.

In January 2014, during the third round of RCEP negotiations, the 16 participating countries exchanged views and reaffirmed the goal of concluding negotiations by the end of 2015. In April of the same year, the fourth round of RCEP negotiations was held in Nanning, Guangxi province, China, continuing to strive for the conclusion of the negotiations by the end of 2015.

From June 2014 to the end of 2015, representatives of the 16 countries held six rounds of negotiations and four ministerial meetings in Singapore, India, Thailand and Myanmar, but the substantive negotiations failed to be concluded as scheduled.

In February 2016, the 11th round of RCEP negotiations returned to Brunei. This round of negotiations consists of the first session and four sub-meetings on trade in goods, trade in services, investment and rules of origin. The focus of this round of negotiations is to advance market access negotiations and text consultations in the three core areas of goods, services and investment, and preliminarily determine the plan for concluding the negotiations in 2016. In the same year, representatives of the 16 countries held five rounds of negotiations in Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Tianjin, China and Indonesia, and completed negotiations on smes and other chapters. However, the agreed goals were still not achieved, and the negotiations were dragged into 2017.

In 2017, the 16 participating countries held four more rounds of negotiations, but due to the complex and challenging terms, RCEP negotiations were not completed in 2017 as all parties had hoped.

In 2018, the trans-pacific partnership (TPP) in addition to the United States has 11 members of the new version of the TPP agreement, RCEP speeding up the process, one after another in the field of goods, services, investment, and some rules issue made positive progress in negotiations, the negotiations into the sprint phase, but in the end, the parties failed to be held in New Zealand to complete goals in 24th round negotiation. India was the main obstacle to a final agreement in the talks, which were dragged into 2019.

In September 2019, the RCEP negotiations came to an end with a major breakthrough with the Indian side. India has agreed to cut or eliminate 80 percent of China's import tariffs under the 16-nation free trade agreement. But on November 4 of the same year, Modi suddenly announced that India decided not to join RCEP. On the same day, negotiations on the RCEP's main body were concluded, and all 15 countries except India agreed to the RCEP's existing terms. India has since absented itself from other RCEP meetings.

In April 2020, the 29th ROUND of RCEP negotiations was held in the form of video conference. The participants exchanged views on accelerating market access and India's return to RCEP negotiations, and revealed the information of striving to sign the agreement as scheduled within this year.

On November 15, 2020, the trade and economic ministers of the 15 RCEP member countries formally signed the RCEP agreement at a ceremony.

According to regulations, after signing the RCEP agreement, all participating countries must complete the ratification process within two years before the RCEP will officially come into force.