By Liu Lu

On 15 November, 15 countries which are ten countries of ASEAN, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand signed regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) officially. It was a sign that the world’s largest free trade agreement was achieved officially. The signing of RCEP will bring long term benefit for foreign trade of Nantong and ‘go out’ development.

Since RCEP became effective, the general opening level of trade in goods exceeded 90%, markets of at least 100 fields were open in these countries; 30% of the goods can enjoy zero tariff in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, 65% of the goods in other member countries can enjoy zero tariff.

In the present ASEAN has become major areas of Nantong companies’ overseas investment. Many companies in Nantong such as Zhongtian Technology, Lianfa Textile, China Tianying, and Tongfu Microelectronics invested and built plants in places like Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. The investment is in many fields including shoes and hats, textile and clothing, mechanical raw materials and mechanical products and construction.

Among the 15 member countries, China has signed free trade agreement with 13 countries, the only exception is Japan. However, after the signing of RCEP, China and Japan reached bilateral tariff reduction for the first time, realized a historical breakthrough.

In the present Japan is one of the major export market of our city. In the first three quarters of the year, the import and export amount to Japan of Nantong reached 23.08884 billion Yuan.

Industry insiders said that the cooperation of China and Japan meant that the world’s second and third largest economies would cope with the current financial problem together, and foreign trade companies of Nantong would benefit and market would be expanded. ‘In terms of export to Japan in Nantong, textile might be the industry of largest benefit.’

RCEP negotiation meant faster improvement of consumption level of common consumers. In the future there will be more excellent consumer goods from other countries which enter Chinese market with lower tariff. By then ultimate consumers in Nantong can enjoy higher discount with reduction of import product tariff, buy cheaper imported products. At the same time it will be more convenient and cheaper for Nantong citizens to travel abroad.