Jiangmen Customs officers went to the company to promote RCEP preferential policies.
Text/Picture Jiangmen Daily reporter Chen Minrui
Correspondent Tan Bowen Ouyang Zhiqiang
According to the website of the Ministry of Commerce, on November 2, the ASEAN Secretariat, the depositary of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), issued a notice announcing that Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and other 6 ASEAN member countries and Four non-ASEAN member states including China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia have formally submitted approval letters to the Secretary-General of ASEAN, reaching the threshold for the agreement to enter into force. According to the agreement, RCEP will take effect for the ten countries mentioned above on January 1, 2022.
According to customs statistics, in the first 10 months of this year, Jiangmen’s import and export to RCEP trading partners was 30.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.5%, accounting for 21.1% of the city’s total foreign trade value. As the world‘s largest free trade agreement, the entry into force of RCEP will bring significant benefits to Jiangmen import and export enterprises. Facing the future, how will Jiangmen seize the important opportunities of RCEP, make good use of the RCEP policy dividends, and provide new impetus for promoting the upgrading of Chinese overseas Chinese capital and building a new pattern of Jiangmen’s high-quality development strategy?
More than 90% of the goods trade in the region finally achieves “zero tariff”
In recent years, Jiangmen Customs, the Municipal Bureau of Commerce and other departments have continuously summed up experience, innovated and broken the situation, accelerated development, and proactively assumed the mission of promoting the city to build a new pattern of comprehensive opening up, and bravely served as the vanguard of high-quality participation in the construction of the “Belt and Road”, and gave full play to Jiangmen’s unique advantages as a hometown of overseas Chinese have continuously improved the participation, connectivity and influence of the “Belt and Road” construction.
The entry into force of this RCEP agreement will bring new opportunities for Jiangmen import and export enterprises. According to Jiangmen Customs, thanks to the RCEP origin accumulation system, import and export goods have obtained the RCEP origin qualification, and there are more options for the source of production materials, and the advantages of the agreement are more obvious. At the same time, the rules will help consolidate and strengthen the regional supply chain and optimize the layout of the industrial chain in the region. This will greatly assist the development of many key industries with a large industrial chain layout, such as household appliances and new energy batteries in Jiangmen City.
Liang Haoming, deputy director of the Jiangmen Customs Tariff Department, said that before the RCEP takes effect, Jiangmen enterprises must export home appliances to ASEAN countries. Under the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, the value of goods in the China-ASEAN region must reach a certain percentage before they can be obtained. Under the agreement, if the product uses more than a certain proportion of imported parts from Japan, it may not be regarded as “Chinese origin”. Under the RCEP framework, the original materials of all member states can be accumulated, and imported parts originating in Japan can be regarded as originating in China. The threshold for enjoying tariff preferences is greatly reduced, which is also conducive to expanding the layout of the enterprise industrial chain.
In addition, after the agreement comes into effect, more than 90% of the goods trade in the region will eventually achieve “zero tariff”, and the company’s products will be more competitive and more profitable. “Through the professional analysis of the customs, our company’s toilet paper, facial tissues and other products are all on the list and can enjoy zero tariffs. This is a new opportunity for us and provides real help for further expansion of overseas markets.” Vinda Li Yutian, Customs Manager of Paper (China) Co., Ltd. said.
Direct “dividends” such as tariff reductions and exemptions
“The implementation of RCEP will bring certain opportunities to enterprises. In the context of the epidemic and de-globalization, RCEP can indeed play an important positive role. Our company looks forward to a wide range of multilateral agreements to better develop the domestic market and the international market. Market connectivity.” Seeing the news that RCEP is about to take effect, Damon, the purchasing and logistics manager of Jiangmen Umi Section Changxin New Materials Co., Ltd., was excited and confident.
In recent years, Jiangmen Umi Section Changxin New Materials Co., Ltd. has maintained friendly cooperation with some countries related to the RCEP agreement, and some of the raw materials are from Australia.
In Damon’s view, RCEP will undoubtedly bring more driving forces to the development of foreign trade companies. “Our company’s current main market, Japan, is the first time that Japan has reached a bilateral tariff reduction arrangement with China, reducing customer costs and bringing win-win results. At the same time, this further enhances our company’s competitiveness in the Japanese market. On the other hand, RCEP adopts the regional origin accumulation rules to maximize the value of the goods trade field.”
Many foreign trade companies in Jiangmen will benefit from this agreement, which will come into effect on January 1 next year. RCEP not only brings direct “dividends” such as tariff reduction and exemption and facilitation of investment and trade, it also helps restructure the industrial value chain in East Asia and speed up the process of economic recovery in various countries.
The 15 member states of RCEP include the ten ASEAN countries, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Its total population, economic volume, and total trade account for about 30% of the global total. Therefore, RCEP is also known as “the world‘s largest free trade zone.”
Asia Pacific Senbo (Guangdong) Paper Co., Ltd., located in Xinhui District, exports about 40,000 tons of products to Japan each year, and is the company’s main export country.
Zhou Jiaming, the company’s logistics director, said that the implementation of RECP has facilitated the company’s development of more Japanese customers. In the follow-up of the company’s new projects, it will also consider the development of the market in RECP countries.
Using overseas Chinese as a bridge to attract business
It is worth mentioning that Jiangmen’s key export commodities such as motorcycles, chemicals, and mechanical and electrical products are also included in the scope of tax reduction commodities. Jiangmen enterprises will also import advanced technology, important equipment, and key parts and components at a lower cost.
Since the beginning of this year, Jiangmen Customs has moved quickly to continuously optimize and enhance the level of trade facilitation, actively carry out industry research, publicize RCEP preferential policies through multiple channels, and continue to release the preferential tariff dividends of the Free Trade Agreement.
“Import and export enterprises should plan ahead, seize the golden period after RCEP takes effect, optimize production and upstream and downstream design layout in the region…” At the RCEP briefing held by Jiangmen Customs a few days ago, the staff of Jiangmen Customs Customs Office told 50 companies Representatives carry out special training.
It is reported that Jiangmen Customs has carried out research on RCEP rules of origin and tariff reduction policies to find out the stock and product structure of enterprises exporting to RCEP member countries in the jurisdiction, and explore potential policy applicable objects through the analysis of key export commodities in the customs area, and export to different enterprises. Guided by actual demand, we will answer questions for enterprises, guide enterprises to seize opportunities, and make good use of policies to enhance their competitive advantage and become stronger.
From January to October this year, Jiangmen Customs has issued a total of 29,500 Preferential Trade Agreement Certificates of Origin for products exported to RCEP member countries, accounting for 47.43% of the total visa volume; the visa amount reached US$1.557 billion, accounting for 48.58 of the total visa amount. %. Propaganda was carried out to more than 100 enterprises, covering enterprises in key industries such as household appliances, motorcycles and papermaking in Jiangmen City.
At the same time, our city will further increase the scale of trade with RCEP countries, actively promote international capacity cooperation, encourage companies to invest in RCEP countries, promote investment in overseas warehouses, and increase investment in RCEP countries. Deepen the facilitation of the approval of foreign investment projects, improve the level of investment facilitation, and encourage enterprises that carry out trade cooperation with RCEP countries to actively use export credit insurance, export credit and other policy financial tools to escort enterprises to “go global.”
“We will further make good use of various exhibition platforms, encourage foreign trade companies to participate in various online and offline exhibitions with the participation of RCEP countries, support companies to explore international markets, and expand the export of our city’s household appliances, household products, stainless steel products, and plumbing to RCEP countries. Leading Jiangmen overseas Chinese in RCEP countries to purchase products from foreign trade companies in our city through online exhibitions and electronic publications on Jiangmen products to build an online and offline economic and trade cooperation platform. At the same time, expand the scale of imports from RCEP countries , Give full play to the role of Jiangmen Daguang Gulf Bonded Logistics Center (Type B), cross-border e-commerce and postal express sorting and customs clearance centers, and improve the cross-border e-commerce, cross-border express, and bonded logistics between our city and RCEP countries. The business scale of the format.” The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Bureau of Commerce said that the bureau will take advantage of the opportunity to implement the “Empowerment of Overseas Chinese” project to make full use of the characteristics of Jiangmen’s hometown of overseas Chinese, promote the construction of special reforms to facilitate overseas Chinese investment system, and promote Jiangmen’s efforts. Create a business environment suitable for overseas Chinese and with its own characteristics, attract more overseas Chinese investors from RCEP countries to invest in Jiangmen, and use overseas Chinese as a bridge to attract business.