• The increasing competition pressure with other RCEP members

In addition to the expected opportunities, RCEP also poses certain challenges for Vietnam, especially from the perspective of competitive pressure in the Japanese market. Because RCEP opens up opportunities to access the Japanese market with preferential tariffs/rules of origin for all member countries, not just Vietnam. This means that Vietnamese export goods in the Japanese market will face fiercer competition from many rivals in the RCEP region, especially countries with similar export product structures and direct competition with Vietnam. In particular, before RCEP, Japan did not have any FTA with China, so Vietnamese goods have a certain advantage over Chinese goods when accessing this market. With RCEP, Chinese goods will also enjoy RCEP tariff preferences similar to Vietnamese goods, causing the tariff advantages of Vietnamese goods over Chinese goods to decrease significantly, making competitive pressure much more complicated, especially in the context that even before RCEP, Chinese goods had the largest import market share in this market.

• Other regular challenges

In addition to the challenges associated with RCEP, Vietnam's exports to Japan also face many other regular challenges, especially non-tariff measures (Non-Tariff Measures - NTM). "Non-tariff measures" are measures other than tariffs that countries apply to goods moving across borders for the legitimate management purposes of each country (protecting human health and life, food safety, environmental protection, etc.). As a market with a strict viewpoint, Japan maintains many very strict NTM measures, especially technical barriers and animal and plant safety and hygiene standards.

In fact, Japan's NTM measures applied to imported goods in general (not just goods from Vietnam) are not related to RCEP. However, the need to eliminate tariffs according to commitments and more favorable rules of origin may indirectly promote increased control through NTM measures, causing Vietnam's export goods to face more stringent requirements and demands from this market.

Source: Center for WTO and International Trade

• Japan’s tariff commitments on imported goods under the RCEP
• Japan’s additional rules of origin under the RCEP
• Japan’s origin certification mechanism under the RCEP
• Japan’s commitment on opening service market under the RCEP
• Opportunities from RCEP for exporting Vietnamese goods to the Japanese market