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Showing posts from March, 2015

RCEP and India - Are we missing something?

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a Free Trade Agreement between ASEAN countries plus three (China, Japan, South Korea) and three more (India, Australia, New Zealand). The contours of this FTA is under discussion and negotiations are on. More at wikilink .  India is already into trade agreements with most of the participating countries in RCEP. The traditional discourse in the media focuses on how our 'Look East Policy' needs this FTA. Also, RCEP is supposed to work as a common framework which will remove some of the confusion that arises out of multiple FTAs in this region with India, each having its own scope, its own rules of origins and such. In addition, we are not part of the other two big trade negotiations, viz., the trans-atlantic and trans-pacific agreements, currently underway.  There are some points that I thought the greater debate in Indian media (if ever there was one on such topics) is missing, and which can be discussed in a post l