{"id":32952,"date":"2018-10-29T17:41:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=32952"},"modified":"2018-10-29T17:41:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:11:23","slug":"rcep-india-hardens-stand-ahead-of-asean-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/rcep-india-hardens-stand-ahead-of-asean-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"RCEP:\u00a0India\u00a0hardens\u00a0stand ahead\u00a0of\u00a0ASEAN\u00a0summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/rcep-progress-before-asean-india-summit-bleak\/article22261467.ece\">RCEP:\u00a0India\u00a0hardens\u00a0stand ahead\u00a0of\u00a0ASEAN\u00a0summit<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a sign that India\u2019s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations could slow further, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has taken a strong stand that the country should restrain itself from concluding any such pact from which it would not gain in the medium term<\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has taken a strong stand that the country should restrain itself from concluding any such pact from which it would not gain in the medium term<\/p>\n<p><strong>RCEP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The RCEP is a proposed mega-regional FTA involving the 10 member countries of ASEAN and its six FTA partners including India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pressure on India<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While there is immense pressure on India in the RCEP negotiations to commit to opening up (90%) of its traded goods, what is troubling the government is the fact that other RCEP countries have so far been lukewarm to India\u2019s demands for greater market access in services, particularly on easing norms on the movement of professionals and skilled workers across borders for short-term work<\/p>\n<p><strong>India isolated<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India, which is defensive regarding opening up its goods sector, is currently virtually isolated in the RCEP talks, the sources said<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next round of talks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The next round of talks is in February in Indonesia. So far, 20 rounds of negotiations have been held, in addition to five ministerial meetings, three inter-session ministerials and one summit level talks between heads of state<\/p>\n<p><strong>Widening trade deficit<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Significantly, while the India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement was inked and enforced from January 1, 2010, India\u2019s goods trade deficit with ASEAN widened from $4.98 billion in 2010-11 to $14.75 billion in 2015-16, and then narrowed to $9.56 billion in 2016-17<\/li>\n<li>The huge goods trade deficit has led to questions on whether the pact is only helping ASEAN nations and not benefiting India<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RCEP:\u00a0India\u00a0hardens\u00a0stand ahead\u00a0of\u00a0ASEAN\u00a0summit Context In a sign that India\u2019s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations could slow further, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has taken a strong stand that the country should restrain itself from concluding any such pact from which it would not gain in the medium term What has happened? Ministry of External Affairs&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/rcep-india-hardens-stand-ahead-of-asean-summit\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">RCEP:\u00a0India\u00a0hardens\u00a0stand ahead\u00a0of\u00a0ASEAN\u00a0summit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704870643},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}