East Asia takes giant steps with RCEP
RCEP agreement lets India join when it is ready. But even if this does not happen, the region will benefit significantly from the partnership.
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AT THE Third Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Summit held in Bangkok on Nov 4, 2019, leaders announced that 15 of the 16 participating countries had concluded the "text-based negotiations" for "a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial" RCEP agreement. Lawyers and linguists will now step in to "scrub" the text and put it up for formal signature, possibly in February 2020.
Although it had negotiated hard, India was still not ready to join the group. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Bangkok that from the perspective of India, the present form of RCEP agreement did not fully reflect the basic spirit and the guiding principles of RCEP. It also did not address satisfactorily India's outstanding issues and concerns. "In such a situation, it is not possible for India to join RCEP Agreement," he added. There were also domestic political pressures by various opposition parties against the deal. The critics claimed that RCEP would open India to a flood of Chinese consumer products and farm produce from Australia and New Zealand.
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