Decoding India’s free trade blueprint

INDIA’S TRADE NEGOTIATION strategy and philosophy have undergone a sea change over the past couple of years. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal recently shared an interesting anecdote that highlights this course correction. It reveals how trade negotiations used to be fraught with lopsided terms, strain for Indian companies, and an unmindful-cum-aggressive push for deals with competing nations like China, and Southeast Asian countries, all of which were almost simultaneously vying for the global exports pie. This effectively defeated the purpose of having a bilateral trade pact.

The anecdote pertains to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations — a China-led 15-nation trading block, comprising 10 ASEAN countries, and Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea. India began RCEP negotiations during the Congress-led UPA rule in May 2013. It pulled out of the talks in November 2019 on the back of multiple concerns, ranging from the lack of import surge safeguards (mainly from China) to market access for Indian firms, among others.