Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP): Evaluation of Trade Relations Between Member Countries Using the Social Network Analysis Method

Abstract

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement was signed in 2020 as a giant free trade agreement signed by 15 countries, including China. In this context, the RCEP agreement is the world's largest free trade agreement in terms of GDP and trade volume. In this study, commercial relations between RCEP countries between 2012 (the year when negotiations of the RCEP agreement began) and 2021 were examined using social network analysis. In the analyses, export values of RCEP countries to each other were used and the data were obtained from Trade Map. In the study, social network analyzes for the years 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021 were analyzed using the Ucinet program, while trade networks were visualized with the Gephi program. For social network analyses, basic ego network indicators, degree centrality values, hub and authority centrality values and eigenvector values were calculated. As a result of the analysis, it is seen that the hub and authority country in trade between RCEP countries is China for all four years (2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021). On the other hand, it has been determined that China's most important trade partners are Japan and South Korea. Additionally, the development in Vietnam's trade level during this period is remarkable.