RCEP train, moving forward with favorable trade

On January 2, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) officially entered into force for Indonesia.
Just after midnight, in the RCEP Shandong Enterprise Service Center located in Qingdao Shibei District, Qingdao customs officers issued RCEP certificates of origin for a batch of frozen salmon sections exported to Indonesia by Qingdao Sanmu Fisheries Co., Ltd. through the "single window" of international trade. This is the first certificate of origin of RCEP to Indonesia issued by Shandong after RCEP came into force for Indonesia.
"With this certificate of origin, the tariff rate paid by the goods after arriving in Indonesia can be reduced from 10% to zero." Sun Junzhi, the general manager of the company, said that this batch of frozen salmon was 1.053 million yuan. With the RCEP certificate of origin issued by the customs, more than 100000 yuan of taxes could be reduced or exempted when the goods were cleared in Indonesia.
In fact, from January 1, 2022 to November, like Sanmu Aquatic Products Co., Ltd., the enterprises enjoying favorable tariff benefits from RCEP created a total of 11.8 trillion yuan of trade, up 7.9% year on year, accounting for 30.7% of China's total foreign trade imports and exports. Among them, China's exports to other members of RCEP reached 6.0 trillion yuan, up 17.7% year on year, 5.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's exports.
This free trade agreement, which currently covers the largest population in the world, has the largest economic and trade scale and the greatest development potential, not only inspires more strength in the region, but also contributes to the development of world economy and trade.
Tax reduction is more advantageous
In Beijing Mentougou Shilong Economic Development Zone, the workshop of Beijing Dayuan Nonwovens Co., Ltd. is very busy, and a roll of non-woven fabric is produced in the roar of the machine. After careful packaging, they will be sold to more than 10 countries, including Japan, and are important raw materials for the production of facial mask and baby diapers.
"Now I still remember how excited I was when I got the first RCEP certificate in Beijing," said Tian Jinli, manager of the company's foreign trade department, "For more than 10 months, we have applied to the customs for a preferential certificate of origin every week. Taking the goods exported to Japan as an example, with the RCEP certificate of origin issued by the customs, on average, each batch can enjoy a tariff reduction of about 2000 yuan from the Japanese side. Every year, two or three hundred batches of goods are exported, which is a large number for our small and medium-sized enterprises. This is a real benefit!"
According to the RCEP agreement, Japan lowered the import tariff under RCEP twice on January 1 and April 1, 2022. "There are many enterprises similar to Dayuan, and the potential of Chinese enterprises' trade with Japan under RCEP has been continuously stimulated and released," said Wang Wei, deputy director of the Customs Department of Beijing Customs.
Benefiting from the advantages of natural geography and industrial institutions, Shandong has also become closer to the economic and trade cooperation with RCEP member countries. According to the statistics of Qingdao Customs, in the first 11 months of 2022, Shandong's imports and exports to other 14 member countries of RCEP accounted for 38.1% of the province's total foreign trade imports and exports. "After RCEP takes effect in Indonesia, Shandong will gain new opportunities in benchmarking international high-level economic and trade rules and accelerating institutional opening up," said Yao Yong, the first level senior director of Qingdao Customs Tariff Office.
According to statistics, in the first 11 months of 2022, Qingdao Customs, Jinan Customs and the Shandong Council for the Promotion of International Trade issued 137000 RCEP certificates of origin, ranking first in the country. The value of goods enjoying favorable export was 38.05 billion yuan, and the import country's tariff concessions were more than 300 million yuan; Qingdao Customs and Jinan Customs applied the preferential tax rate under RCEP for 6.05 billion yuan of imported goods, and reduced the tax by 310 million yuan.
In particular, compared with other free trade agreements, the cumulative rules of origin of RCEP are more relaxed, allowing for the formulation of the original ingredients from RCEP member countries to be taken into account when determining that the goods have the qualification of origin of RCEP, which also greatly reduces the threshold for products to obtain the eligibility to enjoy benefits. By flexibly applying this rule, enterprises can grasp the new opportunities brought by RCEP by adjusting the purchase and sales market and optimizing the capacity layout.
Go to the high-end and have more confidence
According to the RCEP agreement, the copper alloy foil, generator, engine and other products have a large space for tariff reduction, and high-end electronic materials, intelligent manufacturing, and special professional machinery manufacturing industries will benefit directly.
On December 26, last year, a batch of copper belt products of Fuwei Technology (Wujiang) Co., Ltd. were successfully exported under the supervision of Wujiang Customs, with a value of nearly 40000 dollars. With the RCEP certificate of origin issued by Wujiang Customs, the goods arrived in Japan and enjoyed benefits smoothly. The high-precision copper strip and copper tube products produced by the enterprise are widely used in electronics, communications, aerospace and other fields, and the products are exported to Japan, ASEAN and other countries. According to Shen Yifei, the customs affairs manager of Fuwei Science and Technology, since 2022, the enterprise has applied for 112 RCEP certificates of origin, enjoying a total of 1.48 million yuan of tariff reduction and exemption from the importing country.
Since the RCEP came into force, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, has comprehensively promoted the high-quality implementation of the agreement, guided and supported local governments, industries and enterprises to seize the opportunities of RCEP, effectively used various preferential policies such as the commitment to opening the RCEP market, and promoted the gradual release of the dividend of the agreement policy.
As an administrative department of origin, the customs is responsible for the issuance of certificates of origin, tariff reduction under free trade agreements and preferential trade arrangements, identification and management of approved exporters and other functions related to the implementation of free trade agreements. It is understood that in order to ensure that RCEP dividends benefit more enterprises, customs in many places have deepened cooperation with the Department of Commerce and the CCPIT to provide enterprises with query and judgment services on tariff rates and rules of origin of free trade agreements such as RCEP. For example, Nanjing Customs carried out more than 90 enterprise trainings in the form of "cloud preaching", webcast, online interview, government hotline interaction, covering more than 17000 people, and improved the awareness and level of enterprises' utilization of RCEP tariff preferential policies. At the same time, Nanjing Customs also continued to promote visa facilitation measures, and carried out the intensive reform of "centralized operation+multi-point visa" visa of origin, which improved the efficiency of visa disposal by 30%.