Stances about RCEP* and FTAs* need to go beyond election year!
By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA
Even as India played a critical role in shifting the deadline for the conclusion of negotiations on the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to 2019, it has floated the idea of a new approach to free trade agreements. “We will do a completely new approach toward FTAs (free trade agreements). … We are appointing two independent agencies, who will talk to all the stakeholders…it is a first major change. This will be a new template which will emerge for all future negotiations and we are working on it”, India’s Commerce and Industries Minister Suresh Prabhu is reported to have announced at an event organized by India’s Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association. “So, while we need FTAs, we will make FTAs in a way that will also benefit India to begin with, and other countries also,” Prabhu told the gathering.