Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Key statistics

The 15 countries within RCEP represent:

• a population of 2.3 billion, 30% of the world's population 
• a total gross domestic product (GDP) of around $38,813 billion or 30% of global GDP 
• five RCEP countries (Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea) are members of the Group of 20 (G20), the international forum for global economic cooperation among the world's 20 largest economies
• seven of New Zealand's top 10 trading partners based on two-way trade (China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia).

Collectively in the year to December 2019:

• took 56% of New Zealand's total exports, representing 61% of New Zealand’s goods exports (worth $36.6 billion) and 45% of New Zealand’s services exports (worth $11.8 billion).
• provided 61% of foreign investment in New Zealand (worth $68.7 billion).

RCEP highlights

New Zealand exporters grapple with a complex web of different rules when they trade in the RCEP region.  This agreement delivers a single set of rules with RCEP partners, making trade simpler and reducing compliance costs for exporters.

RCEP addresses non-tariff barriers to trade in goods, reducing the time exporters spend waiting for goods to clear customs, and helps create opportunities for New Zealand exporters to get their products and services into regional value chains.

New Zealand has existing free trade agreements with all the RCEP countries, which have already eliminated tariffs on most New Zealand exports. However RCEP will further reduce tariff barriers for New Zealand exporters to Indonesia on some food and manufactured goods.

RCEP provides New Zealand service suppliers and investors with legal protections that guarantee market access and treatment equivalent to that given to local and foreign competitors, unless subject to country-specific exceptions.  

RCEP delivers improved market access for New Zealand services exporters and investors in some RCEP markets that go beyond existing FTAs.  Under RCEP, New Zealand services exporters and investors will, for the first time, benefit from market access commitments from China and ASEAN countries that are not party to the CPTPP (such as Indonesia and the Philippines).

Protecting rights

RCEP preserves the New Zealand Government’s inherent right to regulate in the public interest and contains specific protections in a range of policy areas, including for the Treaty of Waitangi.

As with all of New Zealand’s contemporary trade agreements, RCEP includes a specific provision preserving the pre-eminence of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand. Nothing in RCEP prevents the Crown from meeting its obligations to Māori and New Zealand’s interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi will not be subject to dispute settlement.

Find out more in Māori Interests.

Key milestones

RCEP came into force on 1 January 2022, including for New Zealand.

RCEP was launched in November 2012 as an ASEAN (external link) initiative.

RCEP countries agreed to deliver an agreement that is modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial. Leaders endorsed these Guiding Principles and Objectives (‘Guiding Principles’) for the RCEP negotiations when launched. 

From 2012, RCEP countries participated in 31 full negotiating rounds, a number of Ministerial meetings and three Leaders Summits, which culminated in the full conclusion of negotiations and signature of the agreement on 15 November 2020.