DEPA (II)

According to media reports, DEPA consists of 16 theme modules, covering all aspects of supporting digital economy and trade in the digital era. For example, supporting paperless trade in the business community, strengthening network security, protecting digital identity, strengthening cooperation in the field of financial technology, as well as issues of social concern such as privacy of personal information, consumer protection, data management, transparency and openness.

Some analysts believe that DEPA is innovative both in terms of its content design and the structure of the entire agreement. Among them, modular protocol is a major feature of DEPA. Participants do not need to agree to all the contents of DEPA. They can join any module. Like the building block puzzle model, they can join several of the modules.

Although DEPA is a relatively new agreement and is small in size, it represents a trend to propose a separate agreement on the digital economy in addition to the existing trade and investment agreements. It is the first important rule arrangement on the digital economy in the world and provides a template for the global digital economy institutional arrangement.

Nowadays, both investment and trade are increasingly presented in digital form. According to the calculation of Brookings Institution

The cross-border flow of global data has played a more important role in promoting global GDP growth than trade and investment. The importance of rules and arrangements between countries in the digital field has become increasingly prominent. The resulting cross-border flow of data, digital localized storage, digital security, privacy, anti-monopoly and other related issues need to be coordinated by rules and standards. Therefore, digital economy and digital trade are becoming more and more important in the current global and regional economic rules and arrangements, as well as in the global economic governance system.

On November 1, 2021, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Went to send a letter to New Zealand Minister of Trade and Export] Growth O’Connor, who, on behalf of China, formally applied to New Zealand, the depository of the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA), to join the DEPA.

Prior to this, according to media reports on September 12, South Korea has officially started the procedure of joining DEPA. DEPA is attracting applications from China, South Korea and many other countries.