18-3-2022

The Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) is pleased that the Malaysian Government has ratified the RCEP which comes into force for Malaysia on 18 March 2022, paving the way for domestic businesses and industries to have greater market access of goods and services in Malaysia’s 14 RCEP member trading countries.

The ratification of RCEP underscores Malaysia’s commitment towards open, free and comprehensive multilateral trade system. We believe that RCEP will be the catalyst to aid the economic recovery.

Malaysia’s total trade with RCEP members accounted for 58.3% of total trade, with China remains our largest trading partner since 2009 with total trade’s share of 18.9% in 2021. President of ACCCIM, Dato’ Low Kian Chuan said that China, as a leading nation in Asia and the second largest world economy can nudge the RCEP members to adopt broader and deeper economic integration in the region via greater facilitation of cross-border trade, services and investment.

Dato’ Low said while the RCEP will accelerate the entry of domestic enterprises, especially SMEs into the global value chain, but these businesses also face competition from imports in the domestic market.

In this regard, we urge SMEs to undertake transformative actions to build competitive advantage through strengthening their capability in areas of technology, digitalization, product and market development to ride on the opportunities offered by RCEP while can withstand the competitive pressures coming from abroad.

He said that the chamber has been actively organizing webinars on RCEP since 2021, involving the participation of Government officials to set our business community in motion about what to expect from RCEP – Opportunities and Challenges. The chamber also had many virtual engagements with our counterpart chambers in ASEAN, including RCEP members to explore new business and investment opportunities.

ACCCIM hopes to forge greater Public-Private collaboration in assisting Malaysian companies to go abroad. SMEs require facilitation support in the forms of understanding foreign market environment, trade rules and regulations; product and market development; marketing through e-commerce, and market intelligence. More initiatives are needed to support SMEs in embracing ESG in their organization and business operation.