As it enters its fifth year, the benefits of RCEP are shifting from "short-term tariff reductions" toward "long-term industrial synergy." Key impacts include:

Lower tariff barriers: Tariffs on a large number of products—previously in a transition period—will be significantly reduced or eliminated entirely.

More flexible "rules of origin cumulation": This is a core institutional benefit of RCEP. It allows materials originating from RCEP member countries to be treated as "local content" during subsequent production and processing. For instance, Chinese-exported machinery containing components from Japan and South Korea can be classified as intra-regional products under the RCEP framework, thereby qualifying for zero-tariff treatment. This breaks the traditional "single-country origin" restriction found in other free trade agreements, significantly lowering the threshold for businesses to access zero-tariff benefits.

Positive impact on trade

The deepening implementation of RCEP continues to generate momentum:

Robust regional trade growth: In the first four months of 2026, the total import and export volume between China and other RCEP members grew by 23.5% year-on-year.

Deepened cooperation between China and ASEAN: ASEAN has firmly established itself as China's largest export market. In the first five months of 2026, total trade between China and ASEAN reached 3.52 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.6%.

Tangible benefits for enterprises: The scale of tariff benefits enjoyed by businesses across various regions continues to expand. For example, by leveraging RCEP's rules of origin cumulation, some companies saved their customers over 2 million yuan in tariffs during the first five months of 2026 alone.

We hope this information helps you better understand RCEP.