RCEP will be a gamechanger, says Balakrishnan, urging India to join

Singapore

FOREIGN Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Monday made a pitch for India to keep the faith with "the mother of all trade agreements" which is approaching the final stretch of negotiations between Asean and its six trading partners.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will group the 10 Asean nations with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand to create a free trade pact covering a third of the world's economy.

Meeting over the weekend in Bangkok to resolve the bottlenecks hobbling the deal, already six years in the making, trade ministers said that they hoped to seal it next year.

Mr Balakrishnan called the deal a "gamechanger" that had the potential to secure the prosperity of …