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Tomorrow's Silk Road

Tomorrow's Silk Road

Jacques Pelkmans | Joseph Francois

(2018)

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Book Details

Abstract

This CEPS book comprises a first-ever economic and regulatory analysis of a possible Free Trade Area (FTA) between China and the EU, whose design is supposed to be 'deep and comprehensive'. It provides an overview of the global economic environment in which EU-Chinese economic relations have developed in recent years, including global value chains linking the two economies. The substance of the FTA design is then elaborated in nine, largely empirical and technical chapters ranging from tariff analysis (at the 6- and 8-digit level) and technical barriers to trade, to services, government procurement and investment. A third part comprises a CGE-model-based empirical simulation of the economic effects on GDP per member state (and on China), bilateral trade in goods and services, wages for workers with three distinct skill-levels and a series of goods and services sectors.

The year-long study was led by Jacques Pelkmans of CEPS, and the research was carried out by a team of trade specialists at CEPS in partnership with another team of researchers led by Prof. Joseph Francois of the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern.
Jacques Pelkmans is Senior Fellow at CEPS (www.ceps.eu) in Brussels and visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. Between 2001 and August 2012, he was Jan Tinbergen Chair and Director of the Economics Department at the College. A Ph.D. in economics from Tilburg University, he has been associate professor of economics at the European University Institute in Florence, professor of economics at the European Institute of Public Administration (Maastricht) and professor for European Economic Integration at Maastricht University. He was a Council member at the WRR (think-tank of the Dutch Prime minister) 2001-07.

Joseph Francois is Managing Director and professor of economics at the World Trade Institute. He also serves as deputy director of the NCCR Trade Regulation. Previously he was professor of economics (with a chair in economic theory) at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz. He is a fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London), director of the European Trade Study Group and the Institute for International and Development Economics, senior research fellow with the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, and a board member of the Global Trade Analysis Project. He serves on the editorial board of the Review of Development Economics, and the World Trade Review.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Tomorrow's Silk Road Cover
TABLE OF CONTENTS v
List of Figures viii
List of Tables x
List of Abbreviations xii
Preface xvii
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 33
Part I. The Global and Bilateral Context 35
1. Why an EU-China free trade area? 35
1.1 The context for a free trade area study 35
1.2 Is there a case for an EU-China FTA? 37
2. China and the EU in a rapidly changing world economy 44
2.1 Chinese weight as an EU trade partner: Anticipate 2030 44
2.2 Competitiveness and reforms in the EU and China 46
2.3 Comparing China and the EU’s trade strategies: Multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral 48
3. Bilateral economic relations: Trade and investments 53
4. Global value chains: Significance for the EU and China 61
Part II. Design and Substance of an EU-China FTA 65
5. What would an EU-China FTA look like? 65
6. Market access in industrial goods: An analysis of tariffs 69
6.1 Analysing bilateral trade and its sectoral composition 69
6.2 Industrial tariff profiles of the EU and China 75
6.3 Where China and the EU differ: Tariff peaks 76
7. Market access in goods: Trade defence remedies 81
7.1 Relevance of trade defence for an FTA 81
7.2 Recent bilateral application of trade defence 83
7.3 The 2017 revision of EU trade defence measures and the status of China 85
8. Market access in agriculture: Tariffs and tariff-rate quotas 92
8.1 Bilateral agro-food trade and its composition 92
8.2 Tariff and TRQ barriers in bilateral agro-food trade 94
8.3 Tariffs peaks in agro-food 97
8.4 Tough barriers: Tariff rate quotas 102
9. Technical barriers to trade 106
9.1 Mapping bilateral TBTs and their scope 106
9.2 TBTs between China and the EU: Empirical evidence at sector and product levels 109
9.3 Transforming China’s technical regulation, standards and conformity assessment 118
9.4 Some inferences about lowering TBTs in an EU-China FTA 124
10. Reducing SPS barriers in an EU-China FTA 126
10.1 Market access barriers of the Chinese SPS regime 126
10.2 Concerns from China and WTO partners about EU SPS barriers 133
10.3 Lowering SPS barriers in an EU-China FTA 135
11. Market access in services: China and the EU 136
11.1 Introduction 136
11.2 Measuring the extent of market access in services: China and the EU 137
11.3 Sectoral services market access: China and the EU 140
11.4 Potential value added of an EU-China FTA, based on prior experiences 157
12. Public procurement 161
12.1 China’s offers to accede to the WTO GPA 163
12.2 Barriers to EU public procurement as seen by Chinese investors in Europe 169
12.3 Possible directions for EU-China negotiations on public procurement 171
13. Intellectual property rights and geographical indications 173
13.1 Introduction 173
13.2 EU-China IP Dialogue 174
13.3 China’s IPR legislation and enforcement 176
13.4 IPR protection and enforcement measures in China’s FTAs 180
13.5 IPR protection and enforcement measures in EU FTAs 182
13.6 Geographical Indications 182
14. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and competition policy 192
14.1 The SOE problem in China and early reforms 192
14.2 Reformed SOEs and barriers to market access 195
14.3 Can the EU and China reach an agreement on SOEs? 202
14.4 Competition policy 206
15. Investment and the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment 218
15.1 Why a CAI? 218
15.2 Why are the existing BITs insufficient? 223
15.3 Investment issues an EU-China CAI should address 225
15.4 EU approach to CAI 231
15.5 China’s approach to CAI 235
15.6 What’s next? 237
15.7 Policy options for an EU-China CAI: A review 238
15.8 Integrate CAI in FTA 240
Part III. Potential Economic Impact: A CGE-based simulation of effects of the FTA 243
16. Introduction 243
17. Trade and production linkages 245
17.1 Value added and trade linkages between China and EU 245
17.2 Trade in mass consumer goods 248
18. Removing tariffs and reducing NTM costs in a China-EU FTA 251
19. Modelling the FTA between China and the EU 257
19.1 A non-technical introduction of the model simulations 257
19.2 Simulating economic impacts of ambitious and modest FTAs 260
19.3 Results of the FTA simulation: Changes in GDP (in % and $) 260
19.4 Results of the FTA simulation: Changes in real wages for three skill groups 263
19.5 Results of the FTA simulation: Effects on trade 267
19.6 Strategies for adjustment to a China/EU FTA 273
Part IV. Conclusions and Policy Implications 282
20. Policy implications of an EU-China free trade agreement 282
References 288
Annex I. European TRQs 297
Annex II. Public Procurement in China and the EU 303
Annex III. Estimated Impacts of an FTA 311
Annex IV. Total AVEs for NTBs for Goods and Services 313
Annex V. Technical Overview for CGE Modelling 315