After the "8-year long run", on November 15, 2020, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), including the ten ASEAN countries and 15 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, was formally held during the East Asian Cooperation Leadership Conference Signed, the free trade zone with the largest population, the most diverse membership structure, and the greatest development potential in the world was finally born.

The signing of RCEP is an important step for regional countries to maintain the multilateral trading system and build an open world economy with practical actions. It is of symbolic significance for deepening regional economic integration and stabilizing the global economy. And for the IVD industry, it is undoubtedly another new development machine.

Elimination of trade barriers, more free import and export of IVD products

The RECP signed content contains a total of 20 chapters, covering e-commerce, intellectual property, competition policy, government procurement, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Its main purpose is to reduce trade costs and promote the circulation and exchange of goods in the region by reducing tariffs.

As far as the IVD industry is concerned, developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan are the main markets for IVD consumption. With the popularization of in vitro diagnostic technology and the improvement of public medical services, IVD has also been rapidly promoted in emerging markets such as China and India. The rapid market growth rate. But in fact, in many large tertiary hospitals in China, the equipment and key components used in the laboratory department, such as the concave flat image field grating of the biochemical analyzer, the column flow pump, the sampling system, etc., rely heavily on imports, especially the upstream Raw materials, such as antigens, antibodies, enzymes, micromagnetic particles and microspheres, are heavily dependent on imports. If the supply of enzymes or antibodies is interrupted due to certain emergencies, the domestic reagent production will be greatly affected. For a long time, the global IVD market is dominated by some multinational companies occupying nearly 60% of the IVD market, and the monopoly advantage is obvious. Although the domestic in vitro diagnostic industry has been catching up fast in recent years, the market concentration is relatively low.

The signing of RCEP will mean that China's main trading partners will further transfer to ASEAN, Japan and South Korea. Especially in the signing of the agreement, China and Japan reached a bilateral tariff reduction arrangement for the first time, achieving a historic breakthrough, reducing trade costs and expanding the scale of trade. For the IVD industry, well-known Japanese IVD companies such as Hitachi and Hesson Mecang, etc., will have closer ties with my country, and in a sense will drive the development of my country's IVD industry.

Diversified structure, the development of IVD industry can meet their needs

From the signatories of RCEP, we can see that since the signing of the agreement, the entire East Asia has become one piece, but the 15 member states span across the two continents of the northern and southern hemispheres, including developed economies such as Japan and Australia, as well as Cambodia and Laos. Such as underdeveloped countries, there are differences in policies in the fields of investment, competition, and intellectual property rights. However, this also means a diversification of the communication environment. As far as the IVD field is concerned, although the RCEP member states are in different stages of development, we You can take advantage of each other's individual advantages, take what you need, and keep costs to a minimum.

Opportunity and challenge, the growth path of the IVD industry

In fact, for China’s IVD field, and even for the whole of China, the establishment of RCEP is both an opportunity and a challenge. First, in the RCEP area, my country’s labor-intensive industries no longer have obvious advantages, and high-end industries do not have particularly strong strength. Therefore, compared with other member states, it may not be very competitive. Secondly, in the domestic environment, a large number of high-quality and low-priced imported products flood the market, which will inevitably have a certain impact on domestic products. So how to control this change? The most important thing is that we need to make reasonable use of the individual advantages of different countries to enhance our own strength as soon as possible. IVD companies must intensively cultivate and focus on the main business. While doing a good job in domestic product sales, they must also actively create conditions to go global and expand international The market welcomes this new development opportunity.