What can happen

• RCEP Document is declared as finalised, it remains secret and further finetuning takes place till the implementation date
• India stays out of RCEP, promising to join when all its concerns are addressed
• RCEP Document still remains a work in progress and gets finalised at next year’s summit

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About the proposed agreement

• It is a mega free trade agreement (FTA) trade block being negotiated in secret between 10 members of the ASEAN group and its six dialogue partners — South Korea, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and India
• The concept has its genesis in the free trade agreement among ASEAN countries
• Of the other 15 countries in RCEP, India already has FTAs with 12: ASEAN, Japan and South Korea
• Fly in the ointment is the lack of FTAs with New Zealand, Australia and China
• For India, the RCEP amounts to FTA with China but there are concerns from Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia too

India’s advantage

• FTA being negotiated in services where India has advantage, especially in IT, healthcare and education
• India will integrate with one of the world’s largest trading blocks at a time when the WTO is becoming ineffective
• India to get integrated in global supply chains passing through the RCEP countries, which means new jobs and investments

India’s disadvantage

• China may divert exports by masking them from other RCEP countries
• Unpreparedness of dairy sector will be exposed
• Top political leaders unable to publicly assuage fears as text is secret
• Comparatively poor productivity, investment and technology to disadvantage farm sector
• Imports of fully-built units/vehicles to hit steel, ancillary industry too
• Japan’s insistence on tough IPR norms may hit pharma industry
• Movement of people remains restricted