The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade deal has given Chinese seafood exporters better access to the wider Asian market, according to Shen Zhaohua, the general manager of the Mei Jia Group, a seafood processor based in Shandong province.
Heavily promoted by China, the RCEP – which includes 15 member countries from Australia to Japan and Malaysia – reduces paperwork by harmonizing entry requirements, Shen said on a Shandong regional TV show.
“Being a registered exporter under the RCEP deal means our company didn’t have to supply certificate-of-origin documents with each individual shipment,” Shen said.
Sourcing goods for Meijia, which imports 80 percent of its raw materials, has also been easier under RCEP, Shen said.
Projected long-term population growth in South Asia and Southeast Asia have made the territories attractive to manufacturers as well as exporters. RCEP includes the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and countries with which they have free trade deals, including Australia, New Zealand, and China. India, however, withdrew from negotiations to join RCEP, which entered into force in January 2022.
Sheena Greitens, a China expert at the University of Texas in Austin, suggested recently in the Financial Times that Asian countries are increasingly willing to include China in efforts at regional trade integration, while the U.S. has been largely absent from trade talks since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in 2017, which his predecessor, former U.S. President Barack Obama, had championed.
The U.S. has received requests from its Asian allies for more trade integration, and in response, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has drafted the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). But that framework will not be a "traditional trade agreement," according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and will rather focus on cooperation in fair trade, digital standards, labor rights, clean energy, and infrastructure. A likely negotiation schedule for IPEF will be outlined during Biden’s upcoming trip to Japan.
Photo courtesy of Meijia Group
