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The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is becoming the world’s largest existing free trade agreement in terms of economic size. Aimed at further integrating the economies of Southeast … and Northeast Asia, the RCEP sets high requirements on Customs in terms of procedures, processes and performance. This article looks at the agreement from a Customs perspective and puts forward suggestions for its effective implementation.

‘Importer’s knowledge’ allows the importer to claim preferential tariff treatment based on evidence they have obtained about the originating status of imported products. This evidence must be … in the importer’s possession, be in form of supporting documents or records which may be provided by the exporter or producer and provide evidence that the product qualifies as originating.

Trade agreements have their own unique rules of origin to determine whether something has preferential origin. They also each have their own rules on how preferential origin should be evidenced. … This can be confusing when a business is using multiple trade agreements. The focus of this article is on a particular method of evidencing preferential origin: importer’s knowledge. This is a relatively new concept in the EU, first appearing in the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, replicated in the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and now contained in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.