The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement, came into force on January 1, paving the way for over 90 percent of the region's trade in goods to eventually become tariff-free. Substantial benefits such as tariff reduction, trade facilitation, and factor circulation have encouraged Beijing's foreign trade enterprises to ride the wave of RCEP, developing more markets with greater confidence and embracing a new round of opportunities to open up.

RCEP origin statements can be likened to "paper gold". While procedures used to take anywhere between half a day and a full day to process, the documents can now be issued and printed independently in just a few seconds. On the day the RCEP came into effect, SMC China became the first approved RCEP exporter in Beijing qualified to issue the declaration of origin independently and experience the new speedy, efficient issuing regime.

SMC China is the world's largest developer, manufacturer, and vendor of pneumatic components. The company's business needs require more than 2,000 certificates of origin for export every year. Now, the company no longer needs to apply to customs for the certificate of origin each time for export and can independently issue the declaration of origin, which has the same effect as the certificate of origin issued by customs.

The official signing of the RCEP also led to a bilateral tariff concession arrangement reached by China and Japan for the first time ever. Ultimately, 86 percent of Japanese products exported to China will be tariff-free, while 88 percent of Chinese products exported to Japan will enjoy the same treatment.

The rules of origin cumulation is one of the most important breakthroughs accomplished by the RCEP. According to the agreement, raw materials of other member countries used in production by enterprises from a RCEP member country can all be regarded as locally sourced materials, thereby accumulating and increasing the proportion of the value content of origin and significantly reducing the threshold for member countries to enjoy zero-tariff policy on goods.

(Source: Beijing Daily)