Ningbo Zhoushan Port. [Photo by Tang Yan]

By Gou Wen

In 2021, Ningbo's foreign trade with the RCEP member countries stood at 312.34 billion yuan, accounting for 26.2% of the total. The RCEP region, as an entirety, has become the single largest trading partner of Ningbo.

With the official entering-into-force of RCEP on January 1 this year, more and more goods trade, service trade, two-way investment, and cross-border e-commerce began to aim at the dividends of the world's largest free trade agreement.

Employees in foreign trade know that seizing current opportunities and arranging diversified international markets will not determine the rise and fall of an enterprise, but also the city's open economy.

The Trend of Market

During the epidemic, unusual economic fluctuations are inevitable. For Ningbo, the rise and fall of market demand is often not a simple change for one sector, but affects the city as a whole.

"At present, RCEP member countries have ranked first in the trading partner list of Ningbo. Last year, Ningbo's import and export volume to RCEP member countries accounted for more than a quarter, and service trade accounted for more than 15%," said Zhang Yan, Director of the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

In his opinion, the most intuitive dividend after the implementation of RCEP is the trade expansion effect brought by the tariff decline, especially in the fields of automobile and parts, household appliances, clothing, textile yarn and so on.

Shenzhou Group produces 1.5 million pieces of garment and 600 tons of fabrics from its production line every 24 hours. Wang Cunbo, deputy general manager of Shenzhou, introduced that from January to February this year, about 35 million US dollars of export sales used the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Certificate of Origin, and the average tariff decreased by about 0.7 percentage points, making export products more competitive.

Until now, Ningbo has issued 1,418 RCEP related certificates of origin, with a value of more than 83 million yuan, saving more than 2 million yuan in tariff expenditure for enterprises.

The Trend of Opening-up

While RCEP takes effect, it is also urging both ends of supply and demand to accelerate the recovery of importing slowly recovering advanced equipment and high-end materials, so as to promote the regional linkage of the industrial chain.

"Japan has leading sewing machines, weaving machines, and other clothing production equipment in the world; Japan and South Korea are China's largest sources of imports of high-end chemical fibers, while Australia is China's largest source of wool imports, accounting for about 80% of the total imports. China's yarn imports from Vietnam also account for half of the total imports," said Wang Cunbo.

In his opinion, with the help of RCEP, through the export of advanced technology, equipment and management, and the use of foreign raw materials, labor, land and other resource elements, it helps to achieve the complementarity of domestic and foreign resources and improves the global industrial competitiveness of Chinese enterprises.

The Trend of

Working Together

In all the stories about trade, win-win is always the best ending.

RCEP has 15 member states with different demands and strongholds. Large scale tariff concessions are bound to aggravate the pressure on both ends of some industries.

Here comes some questions. Can the more than 20,000 foreign trade companies in Ningbo and the 120,000 production-oriented enterprises behind them achieve structural transformation in full competition and cooperation? Enterprises will inevitably face some puzzles and problems about the docking agreement and the use of the preferential policies of the agreement. Who will come to their help?

"(We need to) stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises to the greatest extent, maximize the leverage of policies, and give full play to the role of RCEP in promoting the high-quality development of our open economy," said an expert.

For Ningbo, it is important to give full play to the comprehensive effect of RCEP, which is a systematic, collaborative, and holistic project. It is necessary to fully mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity at all levels, regions, industries, departments, and fields, and work together to highlight the role of Ningbo.