[Answered] The Indo-Pacific economic bloc offers India a new opportunity, however, there is a need to re-examine our traditional positions to make the most of economic integration under the IPEF. Elucidate.

IPEF is a US-led initiative that aims to strengthen economic partnership among participating countries to enhance resilience, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness, and competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. India became one of the 13 countries to be the initial partners of IPEF, countries including Brunei, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines, representing almost 40 percent of world GDP.

New opportunities:

• Trade: It includes digital economy and emerging technology, labour commitments, the environment, trade facilitation, transparency and good regulatory practices and corporate accountability, standards on cross-border data flows and data localisations.
• Supply chain resiliency: It intends to develop “a first-of-its-kind supply chain agreement” that would anticipate and prevent disruptions.
• Clean energy and decarbonisation: It also include agreements on “high-ambition commitments” such as renewable energy targets, carbon removal purchasing commitments, energy efficiency standards, and new measures to combat methane emissions.
• Tax and anti-corruption: It has provisions with commitments to enact and enforce effective tax, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery schemes to combat tax evasion and corruption.

However, to make the most of economic integration under the IPEF, following persistent issues must be resolved:

• Taxes and anti-bribery provisions of IPEF can pose problems as presently taxation is a sovereign function, therefore not subject to negotiations.
• There are issues of labour rights, environmental standards and protection of intellectual property rights.
• Digital trade and e-commerce are also affected with the issues of transparency, fair competition and the ownership and localisation of personal data.
• IPEF is different from multilateral trade negotiations as it will not require a consensus. So, countries who do not agree will be left-out and will not get a better deal later.

The Indo-Pacific accounts for 63 percent of the world’s GDP and 46 percent of the world’s merchandise trade. India has been at the centre of trade flows in the Indo-Pacific Region and the IPEF is a declaration of a collective desire to make the region an engine of global economic growth. So, for resilient supply chains the focus should be on 3Ts-Trust, Transparency and Timeliness.