January 1, 2025 marked the third anniversary of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) coming into effect. Over the three years, the Qingdao Customs has issued 313,000 RCEP certificate of origins (C/O), and eligible exporters have issued on their own more than 10,000 RCEP declarations of origin. Both figures were the highest across the country. Up to RMB71.69 bln worth of Qingdao’s exports have been entitled to more than RMB700 mln in tariff concessions granted by other RCEP signatories.

As a milestone achievement in the Asia-Pacific Region to promote economic integration, the RCEP is the world’s most promising free trade agreement that involves the largest population, the most diversified members and the highest economic and trade volume. Over the three years since the agreement took effect, the region has seen deepened economic and trade cooperation, improving efficiency of resource allocation, better coordination between the upper and lower reaches of industries, and an increasingly important role of supply chain and industry chain clustering. As a result, an enlarged “world’s workshop” is beginning to emerge.

To address such issues arising out of a number of C/O issuers and dispersed administrative resources in Shandong Province, the Qingdao Customs has launched a provincial level technical alliance for C/O issuance, taken the lead in China in achieving mutual recognition of origin verification and co-launched a RCEP C/O approval and issuance center in customs territories in a continuous effort to facilitate business benefits from the RCEP.  (Liu Lanxing)

Qingdao Customs officers are handling certificates of origin in the RCEP Shandong Enterprises Service Center.