On January 1, 2022, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) officially entered into force and products such as cosmetics were not included in the list of commitments on tariff reduction.
On January 1, 2022, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) officially came into force, and 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, officially started to implement the agreement.
RCEP is the world’s most populous, diversified and promising free trade agreement that China has signed. Data shows that more than 90% of the trade in goods between approved member countries will eventually achieve “zero tariffs” after the agreement comes into force.
Among them, cosmetics and other products are not included in the list of commitments on tariff reduction.
At present, the “RCEP duty-free list” of light industrial goods is updated. But some products such as cosmetics are not included in the list of commitments on tariff reduction in order to protect the development of local Chinese enterprises. Perfumes, cosmetics and skin care products, hair care products from Japan that imported to China will maintain the current 10% tax rate, fur clothing will maintain the current 23% tax rate.
Guo Yongxin, deputy secretary-general of the China National Light Industry Council, said these protective measures leave some time for Chinese light industry enterprises to seize the opportunity and enhance the competitiveness of the industry. ” Cosmetics industry in Japan and South Korea indeed boast higher industrial development and stronger capacity. So we implement stage protection. Japan and South Korea will also increase investment in local enterprises of China. Fundamentally, it is still necessary to compete head-on from the perspective of industrial upgrading.”
Currently, information related to the RCEP including the Chinese and English texts is available on the China Free Trade Zone Service website (http://fta.mofcom.gov.cn/rcep/rcep_new.shtml) and functions related to the tax rates that will come into effect on January 1, 2022 are also online.
