Study On The Impact Of RCEP Countries’ Trade Facilitation On China’s Export

Against the backdrop of the stalemate in global multilateral trade negotiations,regional economic integration has shown a new trend of accelerated development,with the number of different forms of regional trade agreements and free trade agreements increasing.Due to the advancement of economic globalization and the deepening of regional trade integration,tariff concessions among countries are becoming popular,the room for tariff adjustment is narrowing,while the role of non-tariff factors in promoting exports is becoming increasingly prominent,and enhancing the level of trade facilitation for importing and exporting countries has become a focal point among the factors affecting import and export trade between the two sides.After eight years of consultations,on 15 November 2020,a total of 15 countries-ASEAN,China,Japan,South Korea,Australia and New Zealand-officially signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(RCEP),which is expected to enter into force one after another from 2022,amid rising protectionism,a complex and volatile international situation and the New Coronavirus epidemic,among other factors,causing damage to global value chains.The signing of RCEP marks a milestone progress in East Asian integration and is conducive to expanding regional value chains and promoting high-quality economic development in member countries.As a major trading country,China’s exports to other RCEP member countries have been maintained at a high level and are an important trade object for China,accounting for 26.9% of total annual exports to RCEP member countries in 2020.Expanding the scale of China’s exports to RCEP countries can increase the economic benefits from exports,which in turn can boost economic growth.Therefore,it is necessary to further study the impact of trade facilitation in RCEP countries on China’s exports.This paper explores the impact of trade facilitation in RCEP countries on China’s exports from the perspective of trade facilitation,which has received much attention.Firstly,we collect trade related data in recent years and analyze the current situation of China’s exports to RCEP countries in terms of export scale,export commodity structure and country structure.The results show that the overall export value of China to RCEP countries is on the rise and the proportion of China’s total exports is gradually increasing.Among them,there are significantly more manufactured goods than primary products,and ASEAN is gradually replacing Japan as China’s top export target among the RCEP countries,while within ASEAN,the country to which China exports the most is Vietnam.Secondly,based on trade facilitation-related data,a trade facilitation evaluation index system for RCEP countries was constructed,consisting of four primary indicators,namely port efficiency,customs environment,regulatory environment,e-commerce and finance,under which thirteen secondary indicators were set.The entropy weighting method is also used to assign weights to each indicator,so as to measure the trade facilitation index of RCEP countries and conduct a comparative analysis.From the results,we can see that developed countries such as Singapore,New Zealand and Japan have a high level of trade facilitation,while countries with a low level of economic development such as the Philippines and Cambodia are at the level of non-facilitation,and China is at the level of average facilitation,which needs to be improved.Again,the traditional trade gravity model is extended to include explanatory variables such as the population size of the importing and exporting countries,tariffs of the importing countries,and the level of trade facilitation of the importing countries.By fixing the exporting country as China and the importing country as other RCEP countries,the impact of trade facilitation in RCEP countries on China’s exports is empirically analyzed using STATA 15.1 software,and the results show that the GDP of the exporting and importing countries,the population size of the importing countries and the level of trade facilitation have a positive impact on the exports of the exporting countries,while the distance cost of the exporting and importing countries,the tariff level of the importing countries and the The results show that distance cost of importing and exporting countries,tariff level of importing countries and population of exporting countries have a negative effect on exports of exporting countries.The effects of distance costs and tariff levels in importing and exporting countries are not significant.Therefore,at an overall level,the degree of trade facilitation in RCEP countries has a positive effect on China’s exports.Again,in order to further explore the impact of different aspects of trade facilitation on exports,this paper replaces variables in the extended empirical model and conducts empirical analysis again based on each level of indicators.The regression results show that the four primary indicators of port efficiency,customs environment,regulatory environment,e-commerce and finance all have a positive impact on exports,but the coefficient of regulatory environment is the smallest and insignificant.Finally,it is concluded that at the level of primary indicators,the customs environment has the greatest effect on exports,followed by port efficiency,e-commerce and finance,while the regulatory environment has the least effect and is not significant.Finally,based on the findings of the study,this paper puts forward policy recommendations in the areas of infrastructure development,customs environment,regulations,e-commerce and financial development respectively,so as to help the development of China’s export trade to RCEP countries.