This weekend is extraordinary!
After eight years of "long-distance running", on November 15, at the fourth leaders' meeting of regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement, ten ASEAN countries, as well as 15 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, formally signed the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement (RCEP), which marks the formal conclusion of the largest free trade agreement in the world!
The conclusion of RCEP will push forward the economic integration of the Asia Pacific region, and on this basis, the negotiation of China Japan South Korea free trade area will be further accelerated, which will reshape the pattern of free trade area in the whole Asia Pacific region.
The signing of RCEP will also greatly benefit China's chemical industry!
On the one hand, through the development of nearly 40 years of reform and opening up, China's chemical industry has made great progress, the industrial layout and supporting facilities are constantly improved, and the integrated competitive advantage is constantly emerging. China has occupied an increasingly important position in the development of global chemical industry.
According to the statistics of Cefic chemdata, the global sales of chemicals in 2016 were 336 billion euro, including 206.8 billion euro in Asia. The sales volume of chemicals in China is 133.1 billion euro, accounting for 64.37% of the sales volume of chemicals in Asia and 39.6% in the world. China is the largest chemical sales country in the world.
Moreover, with the continuous expansion of domestic chemical production capacity in the past ten years and the launch of ten million ton chemical projects, the production capacity of traditional chemicals is highly concentrated in China, and many products are facing the situation of overcapacity. The arrival of RCEP will reduce the export barriers of domestic chemicals, avoid the price war caused by domestic overcapacity, and contribute to the healthy and orderly development of domestic chemical industry.
On the other hand, many high-end fine chemicals and new chemical materials still rely on imported resources. Such as semiconductor materials, lithium battery materials, solar cell materials, panel display materials and other industries, which involve many high-end applications of conventional chemicals with higher purity and better product consistency stability, such as electronic grade sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and other electronic reagents. Japan and South Korea are the main import sources of high-end chemical materials in China. The signing of RCEP will help domestic downstream enterprises to reduce procurement costs.
For domestic producers, without the protection of tariff barriers, although they may face more fierce competition in the initial stage, they can also force domestic enterprises to strengthen R & D investment, improve product quality and promote domestic industrial upgrading.
Source: official account of the Mo Bay
