During the 3rd RCEP Leaders Summit which was held on 4 November, 2019 in Bangkok, India stated that the current structure of RCEP did not reflect the RCEP Guiding Principles or address the outstanding issues and concerns of India, in the light of which India did not join RCEP. RCEP was intended to provide mutually beneficial outcomes for RCEP countries including India, however, since the current structure did not adequately address ambition and concerns of India’s stakeholder, India did not join RCEP in its current form.
This information was given by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
The list of country or group of countries with which trade negotiations have been initiated by India are given at Annex I.
Annex I.
On-going Trade Negotiations
| S. No. | Name of the Agreement |
| 1 | India – EU (European Union) Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreements ( BTIA) |
| 2 | India – Sri Lanka Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreements (ETCA) |
| 3 | India – Thailand Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) |
| 4 | India – Mauritius Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) |
| 5 | India – EFTA (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) |
| 6 | India – New Zealand FTA/CECA |
| 7 | India – Israel Trade Agreement |
| 8 | India – Singapore CECA(3rd review) |
| 9 | India – SACU PTA (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia) |
| 10 | India – Mercosur PTA expansion (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) |
| 11 | BIMSTEC CECA(Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal) |
| 12 | India – Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Framework Agreement |
| 13 | India – Canada FTA |
| 14 | India – Australia CECA |
| 15 | India-Malaysia CECA (1st Review) |
| 16. | India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (1st Review) |
| 17 | India-Korea CEPA review |
| 18 | India-Iran Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) |
| 19 | India-Peru Trade Agreement |
| 20 | India-EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) Technical Consultations |
| 21 | India-Bangladesh CEPA |
| 22 | India-Chile PTA (2nd expansion) |
| 23 | India-Indonesia CECA |
One Comment