Asean should participate more in RCEP GVC

ASEAN-Japan Center (AJC) completed a paper on "Asean global value chain and its relationship with RCEP: Impacts of RCEP on Asean integration" in March 2022. The paper examined and compared global value chain (GVC) patterns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member states with the members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to identify RCEP-related opportunities and costs to Asean.

The study reveals that the role of Asean in RCEP GVCs was smaller than that of Asean GVCs and that Asean connectivity, through production, was also smaller, partly because RCEP was less integrated than Asean. While Asean produced many products, these did not necessarily become inputs in exports of non-Asean RCEP members' exports.