| The world today is undergoing a major change unprecedented in a century,with the rampant COVID-19 epidemic,treacherous forms of international trade,prevalent trade protectionism,and obstacles to multilateralism and free trade.Against this background,increasingly countries have turned to Free Trade Agreements(FTAs)to reduce trade barriers and strengthen trade and investment cooperation,given the advantages of FTAs in eliminating trade barriers and promoting trade facilitation.Regional economic integration has been developing rapidly.The Association of Southeast Asian Nations(hereinafter referred to as “ASEAN”)took the lead in proposing the RCEP Agreement(Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership)in2012.The establishment of a unified free trade market by reducing tariffs and cutting non-tariff barriers is the purpose of the RCEP Agreement.The entry into force of the RCEP Agreement will help achieve trade recovery among regional member countries and promote the development of global trade.For China,the signing of the RCEP Agreement will help eliminate trade barriers with other member countries,reduce trade costs,and comprehensively promote trade among RCEP member countries,adding to the economic and trade development of China.This paper first reviews the research progress of trade barriers and RCEP Agreement at home and abroad,explores the economic and trade relations of RCEP member countries on the basis of regional economic integration theory,analyzes the number,types and trends of trade barriers adopted by other member countries against China in the past 10 years or so,and finds that there are still more non-tariff barriers such as TBT and SPS between China and other member countries.Next,this paper adopts the GTAP model to empirically analyze the trade promotion effect brought by the reduction of trade barriers in the RCEP region.The empirical results show that:(1)when zero tariff is achieved in the RCEP region,the import and export of all countries in the region increase,among which Australia’s import and export increases the most,and the export of the rest of the world outside the region decreases by 0.52%;(2)when tariff is reduced to zero,it will promote the trade of member countries,and this promotion effect increases with the reduction of non-tariff barriers in the region,and free trade(zero tariff)and The increase in export scale of ASEAN countries even reaches 10.42% under the scenario of 10% weakening of non-tariff trade barriers.Finally,this paper suggests that China should consider the actual situation of RCEP member countries in the face of the trade barriers related to the RCEP Agreement,eliminate the trade barriers in the RCEP region according to local conditions,and increase the trade promotion effect brought by RCEP;on the other hand,actively learn from European and American countries on specific measures to deal with trade barriers,and strive for the right to formulate trade rules.On the other hand,we will actively learn from European and American countries on specific measures to deal with trade barriers,and strive for the right to set trade rules,so that the RCEP Agreement can become a regional free trade agreement of high global standards. |
