China hails trade, investment achievements of RCEP at three-year mark
新闻台署名 来源：新华社、《黎明报》、《阿拉伯新闻》、阿纳多卢通讯社与《分钟镜报》。由 GSRRA 编辑部翻译并节选。
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has deepened trade and investment cooperation among its members since it came into force three years ago, and has effectively consolidated the fundamentals of China’s foreign trade, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong said on Thursday.
He made the comments at a regular press conference several days after the third anniversary of the implementation of the RCEP, which fell on Jan. 1 this year.
As the non-ASEAN rotating chair of RCEP in 2024, China worked to facilitate new members in joining the pact, He said, adding that China’s Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Chile have submitted formal applications to join RCEP, while other economies have shown strong interest.
Since it came into force in 2022, the RCEP has helped deepen regional economic integration, He said. In 2023, the trade volume within the RCEP region totaled 5.6 trillion U.S. dollars, and the amount of green-field investment attracted by the region was 2.2 times that of 2021.
From January to November in 2024, China’s trade in goods with RCEP members reached 12 trillion yuan (about 1.67 trillion U.S. dollars), an increase of 4.4 percent year on year.
The RCEP is the free-trade agreement with the largest participating population in the world, as well as the largest economic and trade scale, and the greatest development potential, He said.
He added that China, the largest economy in RCEP, will continue to implement the RCEP comprehensively and with high quality, and make greater contributions to promoting Asia-Pacific economic integration and achieving regional common development and prosperity.
The RCEP comprises 15 countries, including 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
According to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, the RCEP is expected to increase the incomes of member economies by 0.6 percent by 2030, adding 245 billion U.S. dollars annually to regional income and 2.8 million jobs to regional employment.
Reference Link:- https://english.news.cn/20250109/637f83897b6542058dba32cd614800fd/c.html
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
