Tricky Times Ahead

By staying non-committal at the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership's (RCEP)'s ministerial discussion and reopening the FTA with ASEAN countries, India has resisted the pressure being built by Chinese diplomats to open up the economy for their products. The RCEP, which has ASEAN countries along with China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, is working on a mega free trade agreement.

India is open to giving space to the other partners except China. The tariff would become zero on roughly 74 per cent of the products; of this, 40 per cent are already being 'dumped' by Chinese players into India. India has a trade deficit of more than $57 billion with China. With reworking of the FTA with ASEAN, India is looking at capturing the global value chain manufacturing and services exports -the only visible benefit out of the RCEP - and that too without conceding ground.