According to the Ministry of Commerce website, on November 2, the ASEAN Secretariat, the custodian of RCEP, issued a notice announcing that six ASEAN member countries, including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and four non-ASEAN member countries, including China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, have formally submitted their approvals to the ASEAN Secretary General, reaching the threshold for the agreement to enter into force. According to the agreement, RCEP will enter into force for the above ten countries on January 1, 2022.

Previously, the Ministry of Finance wrote on its official website last year that the liberalization of trade in goods under the RCEP agreement has been fruitful. Tariff concessions among members are dominated by commitments to reduce tariffs to zero immediately and to zero within ten years, and the FTA is expected to achieve significant construction results in a relatively short period of time. For the first time, China and Japan have reached a bilateral tariff concession arrangement, achieving a historic breakthrough. The agreement is conducive to promoting a high level of trade liberalization in the region.