By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. We improve our products and advertising by using Microsoft Clarity to see how you use our website. By using our site, you agree that we and Microsoft can collect and use this data. Our privacy statement has more details Privacy Policy
Accept
GOGO MagazineGOGO Magazine
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Art
    • BlogNew
    • Featuring
    • Health
      • Food
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Photography
    • Politics
    • Reviews
      • Cafe Reviews
    • Social
    • Sports
    • Tech
    • Travel
    • Travel Stories
  • My Bookmarks
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • My Account
Search
  • Customize Interests
  • Cart
  • Checkout
Reading: RCEP Meet and India
Share
0

No products in the cart.

Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
GOGO MagazineGOGO Magazine
0
Font ResizerAa
  • Blog
  • Art
  • Travel
  • Social
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
Search
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Blog
    • Art
    • Travel
    • Social
    • Lifestyle
    • Tech
    • Music
    • Sports
    • Featuring
    • Photography
    • Politics
    • Health
    • Reviews
    • Travel Stories
  • My Bookmarks
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • My Account
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
GOGO Magazine > Blog > Social > RCEP Meet and India
Social

RCEP Meet and India

Praveen Yadav
Last updated: 2020/11/22 at 10:08 PM
Praveen Yadav Published November 22, 2020
Share
8 Min Read
SHARE

On the agenda when Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Bangkok on Sunday was a crucial trade deal that could hugely impact the Indian economy: The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP. Eventually, on Monday, it emerged that the Indian government was not going to sign the pact, So first understand what is this RCEP. 

Contents
RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership)WHY DID INDIA WALK OUT?POLITICAL ROLEHOW MUCH THIS DECISION COST INDIA?

RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership)

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a free trade agreement originally devised to consist of 16 countries across the Asia-Pacific region. The pact looks to drop tariffs and duties between the members so that goods and services can flow freely between them. At the RCEP’s administrative core is ASEAN: an intergovernmental grouping of 10 Southeast Asian countries – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It was proposed that the ASEAN bloc will be joined with six dialogue partners: China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

New Zealand signs Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership | https://t.co/zGKgzChrog https://t.co/bZI7Pl4QZO

— New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade (@MFATNZ) November 15, 2020

Free trade agreements aren’t new. But the sheer scale of the RCEP sought to change the game. With its original 16-country composition, it would have been the world’s largest trading bloc with half the world’s population and around a third of global GDP.

Whilst we were preoccupied with election chaos & covid, a huge new #trade pact was signed that will connect about 30% of the world’s people. Meet #RCEP: A new trade agreement that will shape global #economics and politics https://t.co/uAu8vAmeib

— Edward L. Armstrong (@armst_ed) November 16, 2020

While the RCEP is administratively built around ASEAN, the main mover is actually China. It was pushed by Beijing starting 2012 in order to counter another free trade agreement that was in the works at the time: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership excluded China and hence the RCEP was Beijing’s balancing act. However, in 2016, when Donald Trump took control of the US federal government, the US itself withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Even now, however, the RCEP is a major tool for Beijing in order to counter the United States efforts to stymie trade with China. Under a protectionist President Donald Trump, the US has since 2018 began setting tariffs and trade barriers to Chinese goods, and economic conflict that has been called the China-US trade war.

WHY DID INDIA WALK OUT?

#BSOpinion | Certainly, the RCEP nations and India will have to try and meet halfway when it comes to market access demands and some safeguards against Chinese imports#RCEP #China https://t.co/yJGvDzfyFn

— Business Standard (@bsindia) June 8, 2020

India opted out of the deal in January in the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok after years of negotiations. Announcing the decision, PM Modi had said: “The present form of the RCEP Agreement does not fully reflect the basic spirit and the agreed guiding principles of RCEP. It also does not address satisfactorily India’s outstanding issues and concerns. In such a situation, it is not possible for India to join the RCEP agreement.” 

India's Foreign Minister warns of RCEP's 'damaging consequences' ahead of Modi and Xi's virtual meet at BRICS summit https://t.co/fUHsW7OcRG

— V. Seetha Ramaiah (@seetharamaiah1) November 17, 2020

According to a government official, India had been “consistently” raising “fundamental issues” and concerns throughout the negotiations and was prompted to take this stand as they had not been resolved by the deadline to commit to signing the deal. Its decision was to safeguard the interests of industries like agriculture and dairy and to give an advantage to the country’s services sector. According to officials, the current structure of RCEP still does not address these issues and concerns.

POLITICAL ROLE

Japanese Trade Minsiter @kajiyamahiroshi to meet Indian counterpart @PiyushGoyal tomorrow in New Delhi; #RCEP will be top focus. pic.twitter.com/dMx3uoJKmg

— Prasar Bharati News Services & Digital Platform (@PBNS_India) December 9, 2019

Sensing an opportunity to voice popular discontent, the largely moribund political opposition stirred to life on this issue. On Saturday, the Congress president Sonia Gandhi attacked the government for considering the RCEP. Gandhi argued that the free trade agreement would deal a “body blow” to the Indian economy and will result in “untold hardship for farmers, shopkeepers, and small and medium enterprises”. Earlier, the Congress had characterised the RCEP as the “third jolt” to the economy after demonetisation and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax.

India had to take stand on RCEP as several key concerns were not addressed: S Jaishankar

Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/3F5nNzCpg8 pic.twitter.com/swEe2nXy7C

— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) November 18, 2020

The Left had also opposed the RCEP. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s farmer wing, the Kisan Sabha announced a nationwide protest on against the bloc on Monday. Even the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent body of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, had raised red flags about the RCEP as part of its long-standing economically protectionist agenda. This opposition made the Modi government quite wary of rushing into a deal. As a result, India made a number of last-minute demands, eventually rejecting the RCEP itself.

HOW MUCH THIS DECISION COST INDIA?

There are concerns that India’s decision would impact its bilateral trade ties with RCEP member nations, as they may be more inclined to focus on bolstering economic ties within the bloc. The move could potentially leave India with less scope to tap the large market that RCEP presents —the size of the deal is mammoth, as the countries involved account for over 2 billion of the world’s population.

India gets invited to the meeting on RCEP free trade agreement; sources say the negotiation panel is scheduled to meet in the first week of February in Indonesia's Bali

Details At 9 pm On India Business Hour pic.twitter.com/yvWeMStBL2

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) January 21, 2020

Given attempts by countries like Japan to get India back into the deal, there are also worries that India’s decision could impact the Australia-India-Japan network in the Indo-Pacific. It could potentially put a spanner in the works on informal talks to promote a Supply Chain Resilience Initiative among the three.

RCEP still on Japan’s agenda; ACSA signing, maritime awareness, North East projects to be discussed at India-Japan FM's meet, 2+2 ministerial and Abe-Modi summit in the next few weeks. Reporting @the_hindu https://t.co/vEGnFjzNXx

— Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) November 23, 2019

However, India’s stance on the deal also comes as a result of learnings from unfavourable trade balances that it has with several RCEP members, with some of which it even has FTAs. An internal assessment by the government has revealed that the growth in trade (CAGR) with partners over the last five financial years was a modest 7.1%. While “there has been growth rate in both imports from and exports to these FTA partners”, the “utilisation rate” of FTAs both for India and its partners has been “moderate” across sectors, according to this study, which covers pacts with Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Bhutan, Nepal, Republic of Korea and Malaysia. India has trade deficits with 11 of the 15 RCEP countries, and some experts feel that India has been unable to leverage its existing bilateral free trade agreements with several RCEP members to increase exports.

“You don’t get into FTAs merely to provide your market to your partner countries. While you accommodate your partner countries, your objective is also to increase the presence of your products in the markets of your partners, and India hasn’t been able to achieve the latter objective,” said trade expert Biswajit Dhar, professor at JNU’s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning. “Our share in the imports of RCEP partner countries have either stagnated or fallen,” he said.

Checkout more such content at: https://gogomagazine.in/category/social/

You Might Also Like

HEATWAVES AND POWER CUTS

INDIA SLIPS 8 POSITIONS IN WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2022

First human case of H3N8 bird flu

UNCCD Conference of Parties (COP15)

TARA AIR PLANE CRASH – NO SURVIVORS

Praveen Yadav November 22, 2020 November 22, 2020
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Reddit Email Copy Link Print
Share
By Praveen Yadav
Follow:
19 | Bibliophile and quaint | Full-Time Coder, Occasional Writer | Analytical Journalist at NDTV | Political and Psychological
1 Comment 1 Comment
  • Anirudh Chandel says:
    November 20, 2020 at 4:17 pm

    4

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
17.2k Followers Follow
528 Subscribers Subscribe
- Advertisement -
Ad imageAd image

Latest News

Spectra: MTV Hustle 2.0 to India’s Rising Hip-Hop Sensation
Music Trending November 2, 2023
Harmonizing Wanderlust: The Inspiring Odyssey of Sahitya Nepal ‘YAATRI’
Music Travel Travel Stories November 2, 2023
Panther: The Rising Star of Hip-Hop Whose Journey Ignites the World
Music November 2, 2023
Flipkart’s Diwali Sale! iPhone in Just 12,499…
Tech Technology Trending November 2, 2023
Will Google’s New AI Bard beat Chat GPT?
Tech Technology Trending November 2, 2023
India’s Winning Streak: Yet No Semifinal Spot in ICC World Cup?
Sports Trending Uncategorised November 2, 2023

You Might Also Like

Social

HEATWAVES AND POWER CUTS

May 30, 2022
Social

INDIA SLIPS 8 POSITIONS IN WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2022

May 30, 2022
Social

First human case of H3N8 bird flu

May 30, 2022
Social

UNCCD Conference of Parties (COP15)

May 30, 2022

GOGO Magazine – Keep Rollin Happiness!
Featuring talent and businesses from across the 🌎

Quick Link

  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Customize Interests

Top Categories

  • Blog
  • Art
  • Travel

My Account

  • My Account
  • Cart
  • My Bookmarks

DMCA Protection

DMCA.com Protection Status

Site Report

GOGO MagazineGOGO Magazine
Follow US
© 2022 GOGO Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
Join Us!

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news, podcasts etc..

Zero spam, Unsubscribe at any time.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?