Workers pack bags with rice in Vietnam's Yen Bai province on July 27, 2022. - AFP
HONG KONG: Commenting on his doubled income from the sale of five tonnes of durian to export traders in December, Nguyen Van Hai, a veteran farmer in Vietnam’s southern Tien Giang province, attributed such growth to the adoption of stricter cultivation standards.
He also expressed satisfaction over higher import demand from countries participating in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), of which China takes the lion’s share.
Like Hai, many Vietnamese farmers and companies are expanding their orchards and improving the quality of their fruit to boost their exports to China and other RCEP members.
The RCEP agreement, which entered into force a year ago, groups Asean as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. It aims to ultimately eliminate tariffs on over 90% of goods trading among its signatories over the next 20 years.
As the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic and multiple uncertainties, the implementation of the RCEP trade pact offers a timely boost to faster recovery and long-term growth and prosperity of the region.
To increase exports to RCEP countries, Vietnamese enterprises must innovate technology and improve designs and product quality, Dinh Gia Nghia, deputy head of a food export company in the northern Ninh Binh province, told Xinhua.
“The RCEP has become a launching pad for us to increase product output and quality, as well as the quantity and the value of exports,” he said.
Nghia estimated that in 2023, Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable exports to China may increase by 20% to 30%, thanks mainly to smoother transport, quicker customs clearance and more efficient and transparent regulations and procedures under the RCEP arrangement, as well as eCommerce development.
Customs clearance has been shortened to six hours for agricultural products and within 48 hours for general goods under the RCEP agreement, a major boon for Thailand’s export-dependent economy.
In the first nine months of 2022, Thailand’s trade with RCEP member countries, which accounts for around 60% of its total foreign trade, rose 10.1%, data from Thailand’s Commerce Ministry showed.
For Japan, the RCEP has brought the country and its largest trading partner China into the same free trade framework for the first time.
“Introducing zero tariffs when there is a large volume of trade will have the most significant effect on trade promotion,” said Masahiro Morinaga, chief delegate of the Japan External Trade Organisation’s Chengdu office.
Japan’s official data showed that the country’s exports of agricultural, forestry, and fishery products and food hit 1.12 trillion yen (US$8.34bil or RM36.7bil) for the 10 months through October last year.
Among them, exports to the Chinese mainland accounted for 20.47% and increased by 24.5% from the same time a year earlier, ranking first in export volume.
In the first 11 months of 2022, China’s imports and exports with RCEP members totalled 11.8 trillion yuan (US$1.69 trillion or RM7.44 trillion), up 7.9%.
“The RCEP has been a significant stand-out agreement in a time of great global trade uncertainty,” said prof Peter Drysdale from the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research at the Australian National University. — Xinhua
