NANNING, China: While most people enjoyed a good rest last weekend, workers at the warehouses of Guangxi Wuzhou Rixin Plastics Industrial Co. Ltd. in the city of Wuzhou in China's southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were preparing nearly 80,000 plastic clothes pegs and hangers for shipment to Japan after the New Year holiday.'We've maintained trade with companies from Japan, Malaysia and Singapore for years,' General Manager Gan Huizhen said. 'In 2022, we applied for 218 certificates of origin under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and enjoyed a tariff reduction of about 250,000 yuan (about $35,900). [This] significantly strengthened the competitiveness of our products.'According to him, the pact reduced export costs, enabling the company's products to have greater price advantages, and increased the number of overseas orders by 15 percent year on year.The RCEP, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2022, was signed by all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and their five trading partners: Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.The Asean is made up of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.From January to November, China's trade with RCEP members grew 7.9 percent year on year to 11.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 30.7 percent of the country's total foreign trade value, according to the East Asian country's Commerce Ministry.Gu Xueming, head of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the said ministry, said since it took effect the RCEP has had a positive impact on regional economic development.'The economic and trade cooperation between China and other RCEP member-countries has achieved remarkable results. The RCEP has played an important role in stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, helping enterprises expand the global market,' Gu said.In the first 11 months of 2022, Nanning Customs in Guangxi issued 1,696 certificates of origin — valued at 754 million yuan — under the RCEP.The average import tariff of parts imported from Japan and South Korea by machinery manufacturer Guangxi Liugong Machinery Co., Ltd. has dropped from 6 percent to 4.8 percent, helping the company reduce overall operating costs and thus improve and optimize manufacturing machinery.'In the first 11 months of 2022, we sold nearly 20,000 complete machines overseas. Over 4,000 sets were sold to RCEP member-states, [up] 50 percent from a year ago,' said Du Pengqing, the company's overseas strategy director.'The signing and implementation of the RCEP will make important contributions to regional, global trade and investment growth, and economic recovery,' said Hong Junjie, vice president of the University of International Business and Economics.According to Hong, the RCEP has built a good platform for regional cooperation, which fully reflects the common interests of all the pact's parties and their confidence and determination to uphold multilateralism and free trade.With the RCEP, 'we have seen the commitment of member-countries trying to liberalize and facilitate trade among member-countries as well as the facilitation of regional supply chain,' said Auramon Supthaweethum, director-general of the Department of Trade Negotiations under Thailand's Ministry of Commerce, adding that the RCEP has helped enhance the country's trade with RCEP members, which accounts for about 60 percent of Thailand's total foreign trade volume.
