On the first of January, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world's largest trading bloc, will come into force

and will eliminate 90% tariffs between 15 East Asian and Pacific countries and - specifies the study - should increase exports intra-regional $42 billion. They have joined the agreement Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The agreement includes several areas of cooperation, with the tariff concessions as a central element. Especially under the RCEP trade liberalisation will be achieved through gradual tariff reductions: while many tariffs will be abolished immediately, others will be reduced progressively over a period of 20 years. The rates that will remain in force will be mainly limited to products specific in strategic sectors, such as agriculture and industry automotive, in which many of the RCEP members have renounced the trade liberalisation commitments.

Trade between the bloc's 15 economies in 2019 was worth about $2.3 trillion. The UNCTAD study points out that the tariff concessions of the agreement could lead to a further increase of almost +2% of exports at home of the new alliance equal to about 42 billion collars. That would result from the creation of new exchanges, given that the most low would stimulate trade between Member States by almost 17 billions, and from the diversion of trade, since more tariffs low within the RCEP would redirect the valued trade to almost 25 billion from states that are not part of the agreement to those members of the RCEP.

In addition, the UNCTAD report explains that the RCEP States should benefit to varying degrees from the agreement, with the tariff concessions that will produce greater commercial effects for the largest economies of the bloc, not because of asymmetries negotiating, but largely due to tariffs currently already low among many of the other RCEP Member States. Especially According to the study, Japan would benefit the most from RCEP tariff concessions, largely due to the effects of trade diversion. The country's exports are expected Japanese will increase by about 20 billion dollars, an increase equivalent to about +5.5% compared to its exports to the RCEP States in 2019. The report also notes effects substantial positives for exports of most of the other economies, including Australia, China, the Republic of Korea and New Zeeland, while forecasts indicate that concessions RCEP tariffs could end up reducing exports of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam and that would be caused mainly by the negative effects of trade as some exports of these are expected economies will be diverted for the benefit of other RCEP members to cause of differences in the size of concessions Tariff. The UNCTAD report notes that, however, the overall negative effects for some of the members of the RCEP imply that these states would have been better off staying beyond outside the agreement since in any case effects would have occurred of exchange diversion. The study concludes that overall, thus, the entire region will benefit from the concessions RCEP tariffs.