Analysis Of RCEP Economic And Trade Effect Based On GTAP Model

With the development of the multilateral trading system represented by WTO and the improvement of the world’s opening level,globalization and regional integration have triggered interest differentiation and conflicts,leading to the bottleneck of the development of the multilateral trading system,and the continuous emergence of international regional economic integration organizations.After the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008,trade protectionism and other negative impacts,countries around the world have accelerated bilateral and regional free trade negotiations in order to hedge trade policy uncertainty.In this process,ASEAN actively promoted RCEP in order to improve the "spaghetti bowl effect" in East Asia and maintain its central position in the economic cooperation in East Asia.After years of negotiations,RCEP has been formally implemented in January 2022,which is of great significance to all Member States.Based on the theory of free trade area,this paper systematically analyzes the current situation of RCEP trade development,and studies the economic and trade effects after the establishment of RCEP from the perspective of trade effects,welfare effects,economic growth effects and industrial structure effects.On this basis,the partial effect decomposition method is used to decompose the contribution of tariff barriers and technical barriers to trade to the economic welfare and industrial output of Member States.The research shows that: first,the establishment of RCEP will promote the growth of import and export trade,welfare and GDP of member countries,and improve the terms of trade of member countries;It will restrain the growth of import and export trade,welfare and GDP of non member countries,and worsen the terms of trade of non member countries.Second,after the establishment of RCEP,the industrial structure of member countries will be affected to varying degrees.As far as China is concerned,after the establishment of RCEP,agriculture,forestry,animal husbandry,medium and low-tech manufacturing,medium and high-tech manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing will all be negatively affected.Third,when tariff barriers and technical barriers to trade are reduced at the same time,the contribution of tariff decline to welfare effect becomes smaller and smaller,while the contribution of technical barriers to trade to welfare effect becomes larger and larger.Therefore,the welfare effect brought by RCEP is mainly affected by the reduction of technical barriers to trade.Fourth,the sensitivity of the industrial output level of RCEP members to tariff barriers and technical barriers to trade is different.As far as China is concerned,the output level of most industries in China is more sensitive to technical barriers to trade,while only the output level of animal husbandry is more sensitive to tariff barriers.