SINGAPORE: Fifteen Asia-Pacific countries, including China, signed the world’s largest trade agreement on Sunday, the Regional Integral Economic Association (RCEP), without India, in the hopes that it will help recover from the Covid-19 shocks. The RCEP was signed after eight years of negotiations at the conclusion of the annual summit of leaders from Southeast Asia and their regional partners.
The deal, which covers nearly a third of the world economy, will progressively lower tariffs in many areas in the coming years, according to reports. After signing, all countries would have to ratify the RCEP within two years before it goes into effect.
India, one of the main consumer-driven markets in the region, withdrew from the talks last year, concerned that the removal of tariffs would open its markets to a flood of imports that could hurt local producers.
But other nations have said in the past that the door remains open for India’s participation in the RCEP, influenced by China.
RCEP was first proposed in 2012 and is replicated in 10 Asean economies: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, along with China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. The Prime Minister of the host country, Vietnam, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, said that the Covid-19 pandemic has damaged global and regional trade and investment flows, including countries participating in the RCEP talks.
Global and regional economies face huge obstacles and challenges caused not only by Covid-19, but also by declining global trade, it said according to the Vietnam News Agency.
Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong It said it joins other RCEP countries “in the hope that India can also participate at some point so that participation in RCEP fully reflects emerging patterns of regional integration and cooperation in Asia.”
India accounts for nearly a third of the world’s population and accounts for 29% of the world’s gross domestic product, he said.
.
