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.

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 (1^st  Review)

16.      India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (1^st 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 (2^nd expansion)

23       India-Indonesia CECA

This information was given by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

Trade negotiations: India declined RCEP membership citing unmet guiding principles and outstanding stakeholder concerns, while pursuing multiple FTAs. India declined participation in RCEP because the agreement's current structure did not reflect RCEP Guiding Principles and did not address outstanding concerns of Indian stakeholders. Simultaneously, India is pursuing a broad range of bilateral, plurilateral and preferential trade negotiations and reviews-including BTIAs, CECAs/CEPAs, PTAs and framework consultations-with partners across Europe, Asia, the Americas and regional groupings to advance market access and address stakeholder priorities.