- 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
Also read:
- How RCEP ‘deal’ tomorrow can hit India, or be a hit
- Why Sangh affiliate’s opposition suits BJP
- Small, medium units in panic
- ‘Fears of milk products, seeds being dumped’
- ‘Agriculture must be kept out of FTA’
- The pact would be suicidal: Jairam
- AT CROSSROADS: How crucial sectors fear they would fare if deal is on
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