Expert: The superimposed effect of Hainan Free Trade Port and RCEP will benefit global investors

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into effect on January 1 this year, becoming a new benchmark for multilateral economic and trade cooperation and openness. Scholars said at the "Hainan Free Trade Port under RCEP" seminar held in Haikou on the 6th that the Hainan Free Trade Port and RCEP will form a superimposed linkage effect, which will share China's opening-up opportunities and RCEP dividends for global investors.

RCEP is the world's largest free trade zone, and Hainan is building a new highland for China's opening to the outside world. Huang Shengqiang, a professor at Shanghai Customs College, said that the combination of the independent opening of the Hainan Free Trade Port and the opening of the RCEP agreement will not only help Hainan to speed up industrial upgrading and build it into a high-level experimental field for China's opening to the outside world, but will also provide access to commodities and products outside the region. Enterprises entering the RCEP market through Hainan have a significant impact.

Chi Fulin, President of the China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute and President of the Free Trade Port Research Institute with Chinese Characteristics, proposed that in the future, the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port should locate two "headquarters", that is, to form the headquarters of domestic enterprises facing the ASEAN market, attracting Non-RCEP member companies set up regional headquarters for the Chinese market here.

At present, the Hainan Free Trade Port policy arrangement is generally better than the relevant rules of RCEP, and there are conditions for a higher level of cooperation. Chi Fulin called for Hainan to not only advance the implementation of the RCEP rules, but also carry out higher-level cooperation with Singapore, Malaysia and other member states of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Huo Jianguo, vice president of the China World Trade Organization Research Association, suggested that in the high-level opening of the CPTPP, Hainan can consider implementing appropriate provisions such as e-commerce, government procurement, competition policy, environmental protection, labor, and intellectual property protection.

Hainan has unique geographical advantages and open institutional advantages in RCEP and China's large market. Scholars at the meeting believed that under the framework of RCEP, Hainan and ASEAN have extensive space for cooperation in the fields of tourism, modern service industry, and tropical high-efficiency and characteristic agriculture. Ma Hongtao, director of the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China, said that Hainan agricultural enterprises should focus on ASEAN, carry out cooperation in the regional agricultural industry chain and value chain, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

"Under the framework of RCEP, the cooperation between Hainan and ASEAN in the marine field may achieve new breakthroughs." Wu Shicun, the founding president of the China South China Sea Research Institute and the vice president of the Free Trade Port Research Institute with Chinese Characteristics, believes that the sea-related research institutions of the two sides can carry out deep-sea research. Scientific research will make a difference in protecting the biodiversity of the South China Sea and marine environmental protection.