India’s no to RCEP could still be a no

Last week, 15 East Asian countries agreed to take their economic integration several notches higher by forging the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the largest free trade agreement ever. These countries had adopted a resolution “to establish an ASEAN-led process by setting out principles” that would allow ASEAN members to “engage interested ASEAN FTA partners in establishing a regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement”. The “Guiding Principles and Objectives”, the de facto negotiating mandate for RCEP, spoke of “progressively eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers on substantially all trade in goods” and achieving “high level of tariff liberalization, through building upon the existing liberalization levels between RCEP participating countries and through tariff elimination on a high percentage of both tariff lines and trade value”. Editorial | Threat or treat: on RCEP trade deal And, finally, RCEP negotiations on a framework for investment “to cover the four pillars of promotion, protection, facilitation and liberalization”. In case of electronic commerce, RCEP members have agreed not to “prevent cross-border transfer of information by electronic means where such activity is for the conduct of the business of a covered person”.