How to improve the utilization rate of treaty preferential tax rate through RCEP?

        The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) came into force on January 1, 2022, becoming the largest free trade agreement in the world, and marking the launch of the world’s largest free trade zone with the largest population, the largest economic and trade scale and the most potential for development.

• From January 1, 2022

        RCEP has entered into force in 10 countries including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand

• From February 1, 2022

        Effective for Korea

• From March 18, 2022

        Effective for Malaysia

• From May 1, 2022

        Effective for Myanmar

• From January 2, 2023

        Effective for Indonesia

• February 21, 2023

        The Senate of the Philippine Congress formally approved the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP).

        Subsequently, the Philippines will submit its approval to the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. RCEP will officially enter into force for the Philippines 60 days after the submission of the approval.

        According to the statistics of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), in January 2023, the amount of preferential certificates of origin issued by the National System for the Promotion of International Trade was 5.723 billion US dollars, up 6.68% year on year; The number of visas was 124000, up 1.03% year on year. The amount and number of preferential certificates of origin visas, which are closely related to the FTA, are still showing a positive growth trend, and the growth rate of visa amount is higher than that of the number of visas, indicating that the role of the FTA in promoting the stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade is further apparent.

        After the entry into force of the RCEP, the products with zero tariff in the regional trade between China and other RCEP parties are close to or more than 90% in terms of the number of tariff items. The treaty preferential tax rate is different from the MFN tax rate.

        Most-favored-nation tariff rate: refers to the level of tariff rate that WTO members impose on imported products originating from another member.

        Agreed preferential tariff rate: refers to the level of tariff rate imposed by a contracting member of the free trade agreement on imported products originating from another contracting member.

        The treaty preferential tariff rate is usually lower than the MFN tariff rate.

        For a certain type of product, the greater the difference between the above two tariff rates, the greater the tariff reduction of the free trade agreement, and the more opportunities for enterprises engaged in the trade of such products to benefit from it.

        RCEP uses the principle of regional accumulation in the region, so that the value components of the origin of the product can be accumulated in the region composed of 15 contracting parties, and the value components from any party of RCEP will be taken into account, which will significantly improve the utilization rate of the treaty preferential tax rate. At the same time, compared with the previous “10+1” agreement, RCEP has further enriched the types of certificates of origin. In addition to the traditional certificates of origin, it will also allow the declaration of approved exporters and the independent declaration of exporters or producers after a certain transition period. It marks that the declaration of origin system will change from the issuance mode of the officially authorized visa agency to the independent declaration mode of enterprise credit guarantee, which greatly saves the administrative costs of the government and the operating costs of enterprises, and further improves the customs clearance efficiency of goods.

Article source：Jinnuo Customs Legal Practice