Abstract: The deepening development of regional trade agreements provides new opportunities for a country or a region to participate in the global value chain specialization. As an important part of post-border rules of regional trade agreements, investment provisions have an important impact on a country or a region's value-added export. This paper conducts an empirical study based on the 66 regional trade agreements signed by G20 countries from 2005 to 2015. The findings show that in terms of the data of trade added value both from the national level or from the product level, the depth of the investment terms of RTA has significantly improved the export trade added value of a country or a region. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that in both the developing countries and the developed countries, the depth of investment terms in the regional trade agreements signed between developing countries has a significant and positive impact on the added value of export trade, while the depth of investment terms in the regional trade agreements signed between developed countries has a negative and insignificant effect on the value-added export trade. Therefore, in the process of building high-quality free trade zones, China should not only focus on improving the scope and depth of investment terms, but also conduct regional cooperation with countries at different economic development levels based on the principle of “seeking common ground while reserving differences”.

Key words: regional trade agreements, depth of investment terms, value-added from export