• East Asian Economic Review
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.233-272
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• 2021

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, signed in November 2020, comes shortly after the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) entered into force and the US-China Trade War escalated. We use a computable general equilibrium model to assess the long-term effects of these three developments on income, trade, economic structure, factor returns and employment across the world, and especially in Asia-Pacific countries. The results suggest that RCEP could generate income gains that will be almost twice as large as those of the CPTPP, and that the two agreements together will largely offset the substantial negative effects of the US-China Trade War for the world as a whole. All three policy developments, but especially RCEP, will deepen East Asian production networks and will raise productivity and increase wages and employment in much of East Asia. At the sectoral level, regional trade in non-durable and durable manufactures will experience the most growth.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.3-25
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• 2022

East Asia's Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into force in 2022 as the world's largest free trade agreement. RCEP was concluded, signed and brought into force in the face of major international uncertainty and is a significant boost to the global trading system. RCEP brings Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand into the same agreement with the ten member ASEAN group at its centre. It keeps markets open and updates trade and investment rules in East Asia, a major centre of global economic activity, at a time of rising protectionism when the WTO itself is under threat. The agreement builds on ASEAN's free trade agreements and strengthens ASEAN centrality. One of the pillars of RCEP is an economic cooperation agenda which has its antecedents in ASEAN's approach to bringing along its least developed members and builds on the experience of capacity building in APEC and technical cooperation under the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. There is an opportunity to create a framework that facilitates deeper economic cooperation that involves experience-sharing, extending RCEP's rules and membership at the same time as strengthening political cooperation. The paper suggests some areas that might be best suited to cooperation - that is confidence and trust building instead of or before negotiation - and discusses how non-members may be engaged and the membership expanded. Options such as multilateralising provisions and becoming a platform for policy convergence and coordinating unilateral reforms are canvassed.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• 제45권1호
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• pp.23-31
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• 2023

The core of the foreign policy of the Yoon Suk-yeol government is the promotion of active economic and security diplomacy as indicated in Policy Tasks No. 98. To this end, economic consultative bodies such as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(RCEP), Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) are taking the initiative to respond to the formation of supply chain, human rights, environment, and digital-related norms, and actively support Korean companies' overseas expansion. Due to the nature of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) as an organization established centered on the space of the ocean, the MOF faces difficulties in bringing the functions of other ministries into the space of the ocean. Considering the vision, objectives, and detailed plans of the MOF, the contribution of the MOF in the field of active economic security, one of the main foreign policies of the Yoon Suk-yeol government, is perhaps too obvious. However, since the re-launch of the MOF, the ODA budget for the oceans and fisheries sector is too small compared to other ministries, so even if new policy demands are discovered, there are many difficulties in implementing these policies in practice. Recognizing these problems, this paper examines the background and contents of foreign policies that have been promoted for the efficient promotion of RCEP, CPTPP and IPEF and introduces the areas of cooperation in the oceans and fisheries sector in these foreign policies.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.171-207
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper investigates the potential effect of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on trade liberalization among member countries in order to answer key questions in our research on whether the RCEP will be a cornerstone or just collaboration. Furthermore, it aims to measure the likely magnitude of the economic impact it has on its members. Design/methodology - Toward achieving research objectives, we developed a regional CGE model based on the GTAP 9 database. Findings - The simulation results show Korea, Australia, India, and Japan ranked the top countries with an average growth in GDP of 0.38 %, 0.36%, 0.29%, and 0.23%, respectively. Moreover, China and New Zealand followed with a percentage of 0.12% each. The lower economic performing group is the ASEAN group due to a contraction in GDP by 0.13%. Accordingly, there was a positive impact of the RCEP agreement on all member states, as empirically demonstrated. Furthermore, Korea is one of the countries that will benefit most from joining this agreement. Finally, this agreement is important; it has many economic benefits to member states, but it is not a cornerstone. Originality/value - The examination of the quantitative effects of tariff removal among the RCEP's countries is its value. We will address all member countries of the convention simultaneously using a regional CGE model GAMS language, where we employed a Mathematical Programming System for General Equilibrium (MPSGE) to establish a Regional CGE model. This study is directed to policymakers looking at evaluating RCEP agreement.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.89-97
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• 2018

Purpose - The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) among 16 countries including South Korea, the largest free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region, will be concluded next year. The participating countries decided to pursue a comprehensive and high -quality agreement, while ensuring flexibility considering development level of each country. In this study, trade structures between nations from 2005 through 2016 were examined to see the impact that this agreement will have on Korea and to come up with effective countermeasures. Research design, data, and methodology - The method of analysis includes the analysis of the trade matrix, which is useful for identifying the dependency of the individual countries on the market in the region and the reciprocal dependency of the member countries on the market, and the index of intensity of trade, which is useful for figuring out the share of trade between the parties in total trade. Results - The results showed that first, the international trade coefficients of Vietnam and Philippines are higher than those of China and Japan. Secondly, the international inducement coefficients between China and Japan were high, and that between Indonesia and Burma were low, indicating that Korea's exports did not have much effect on export increase of these countries. Third, as a result of analyzing Korea's trade intensity, it was found that export intensity and import intensity were greater than 1 in Vietnam and Philippines, which shows that there is a high degree of relational bond with these countries. India and Laos countries still have a low level of relational bond, which indicates that there is room for improvement in economic relations when the agreement is concluded. After the signing of the agreement in the future, more diverse industrial structures should be continuously studied. Conclusions - The analysis of trade matrix, trade structure, trade inducement coefficient and trade intensity between Korea and RCEP participating countries shows that the majority of the countries have the high level of economic relationship with Korea. Korea should drive a harder bargain when negotiating the terms of the RCEP, in comparison with the level of the existing FTA agreement excluding Japan.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.177-215
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• 2018

Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his "America First" trade agenda ignite a second round of interest in mega-free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific. Countries are evaluating alternative trade policy actions in a post-TPP era. Using national real GDP gains estimated by a modified GTAP model to construct "preference ordering" for 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members and their six regional dialogue partners, this paper comes up with several policy-oriented findings. First, when multilateral agreements are not possible, countries are better off with a regional trading agreement than without one. Second, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is likely to have higher beneficial impacts than the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Third, for dual-track countries, implementing both agreements is better than each separately. Fourth, impacts of open regionalism are likely to be higher than those of a closed and reciprocal one. Going forward, this paper argues that countries should adopt a "multi-track, multi-stage" approach to trade policy.