The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) will come into effect on January 1, 2022

On January 1, the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (RCEP) came into effect. Six ASEAN members including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, and 4 non-ASEAN members including China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia The member states officially began to implement the agreement.

After 8 years of negotiations, the RCEP was signed on November 15, 2020. After the joint efforts of all parties, the entry into force threshold will be reached on November 2, 2021. The effective implementation of RCEP marks the official landing of a free trade zone with the world’s most populous, largest economic and trade scale, and the most potential for development. It fully reflects the confidence and determination of all parties to jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade and promote regional economic integration. It has made important contributions to regional and global trade and investment growth, economic recovery and prosperity.

China will fully and fully fulfill RCEP obligations, implement high-quality agreements, expand foreign trade and two-way investment, continue to stabilize and strengthen the supply chain of the industrial chain, and continue to improve the business environment. Guide localities, industries and enterprises to make good use of the agreed market opening commitments and rules to better grasp the market opening opportunities brought by RCEP. The Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to continue to do RCEP training, support the construction of the free trade zone public service platform, strengthen the service network function of the China free trade zone, and provide guidance and services for the high-level implementation of agreements by various localities, industries and companies .

China will work with RCEP members to actively participate in and support the construction of the RCEP mechanism, make contributions to RCEP economic and technical cooperation, jointly promote the improvement of the overall implementation level of the agreement, continue to improve regional trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and build RCEP into East Asian economic and trade cooperation the main platform.  （forward from MOFCOM）