In today’s global trade landscape, multilateral free trade cooperation is becoming an important force in promoting the development of China’s foreign trade.
In the three years since RCEP took full effect, Guangdong Port has saved foreign trade companies a total of 1.4 billion yuan in tariffs, and the concessions have accelerated in the past three years, reaching 8.81%, 32.35%, and 32.12% respectively.
This data intuitively reflects the tangible benefits brought to enterprises by the reduction in tariff costs.
Tariff concessions directly enhance the competitiveness of products.
Taking the lithium-ion battery pack produced by Dongguan Chuangmei Electric Industry as an example, it used RCEP’s accumulation of origin rules to count raw materials from Malaysia and South Korea as originating components, and received a 5% tariff reduction, with a cumulative tariff reduction of more than 300 million yuan.
This gives the product a clear price advantage in the importing country market.
Roca (China)’s ceramic toilets are exported to Malaysia. The original 25% import tariff rate has been reduced to 22.7% with the RCEP certificate of origin, and will be reduced to zero tariffs year by year.
In the first four months of this year, the value of goods enjoyed by the company increased by 35.4%, fully proving the positive impact of tariff reductions on order volume.
The improvement in customs clearance timeliness has also brought great convenience to foreign trade companies.
Fresh and perishable products have extremely high requirements on customs clearance time. After a batch of fresh cut chrysanthemums from Malaysia arrived in Guangzhou, customs clearance procedures were completed in less than 2 hours and directly shipped to the flower market for sale. This is due to RCEP’s rigid restriction on 6-hour customs clearance of perishable goods.
In terms of rail-sea combined transportation, the “one declaration, one order to finalize” model implemented by the customs of Qiong, Guangdong and Chongqing has shortened customs clearance time by 30% and saved logistics costs by 15%, allowing the production capacity of inland factories of small and medium-sized foreign trade companies in the central and western regions to connect with overseas markets at a cost close to that of the coast.
The “one-pole joint inspection and release” in the Manzhouli Pilot Free Trade Zone has achieved remarkable results. In the first four months, foreign trade import and export increased by 43.1%.
The reduction of cross-border settlement costs is also a highlight of multilateral free trade cooperation.
Traditional cross-border remittances go through the SWIFT system, which has high handling fees and long arrival time. However, the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge (mBridge) compresses the arrival time to seconds and reduces transaction costs by half.
Foreign trade companies in Fujian have benefited from this. As of the end of May this year, the total amount settled by Fujian companies through the Currency Bridge exceeded 13 billion yuan. Customers’ cross-border settlement speed is 90% faster than the traditional model, and handling fees have been reduced by about 50% on average.
For commodity traders facing exchange rate fluctuations, this not only saves handling fees, but also reduces exchange risks.
Data from Hainan Free Trade Port and Qingdao Free Trade Area further demonstrate the dividends of multilateral free trade cooperation.
The Hainan Free Trade Port has been closed for more than four months, and the value of zero-tariff imports was 2.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 99.6%.
The Japanese BNCT cancer treatment equipment imported by Pengbo Hospital enjoys zero tariff, saving more than 19 million yuan in taxes and fees, which can be used to improve medical service capabilities and overseas patient reception capabilities.
For offshore trade in the Qingdao Free Trade Zone, the stamp duty exemption policy has enabled more than 60 companies to reduce stamp duties by more than 17 million yuan in total. In 2025, the international balance of payments for offshore resale transactions has soared by 90%, exceeding US$17 billion.
As version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area incorporates new fields such as digital economy and green economy into the institutional framework, the countdown to the commercialization of mBridge has entered, and the profit margins of foreign trade practitioners are expected to further expand in the future.
When settlement costs are further reduced by half and zero-tariff coverage is expanded by another 25 percentage points, the profit margins of foreign trade practitioners will be redefined, providing a broader stage for Chinese goods to go global.
