Impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) implementation on agricultural sector in regional countries: A global value chain perspective

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has created favorable conditions for building deeply integrated agricultural value chains (AVC) in Asia-Pacific. Based on the RCEP agreement, this study employed the global trade analysis project (GTAP) model to evaluate the impact of RCEP on AVC of member countries in terms of time, tariff reduction, and reduction of non-tariff barriers (NTB). The results indicate that (1) the implementation of RCEP boosts the value-added to agricultural exports for most member countries, particularly in competitive industries; (2) the increase in domestic production and processing capacity, reflected in domestic value-added (DVA), is the primary factor driving the rise in the value-added of agricultural exports across various industries of member countries; (3) RCEP enhances the participation of most regional countries in AVC, with varying impacts on AVC positioning, thereby fostering regional AVC development; and (4) RCEP has a positive effect on AVC indicators both in the short and long term, with the effect becoming more pronounced over time. Additionally, reducing NTB enhances the positive effects of tariff reductions on AVC indicators. Based on the analyses, the following recommendations are proposed: (1) Leverage the development opportunities arising from RCEP implementation to enhance the agricultural DVA; (2) capitalize on cooperative opportunities created by RCEP to build cohesive regional AVC; and (3) prioritize the effective implementation of RCEP's high-quality rules.