What ails India’s free trade agreements?

Lately, India’s trade policy seem to lack a vision. After actively pursuing it for over a decade, India decided against joining RCEP at the eleventh hour. The official version is that India runs a large trade deficit with RCEP countries, and was expecting specific protection for its industry and far...

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Autores principales: Pohit, Sanjib, Pal, Barun Deb
Formato: Opinion Piece
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Indian Express Group 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143272
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author Pohit, Sanjib
Pal, Barun Deb
author_browse Pal, Barun Deb
Pohit, Sanjib
author_facet Pohit, Sanjib
Pal, Barun Deb
author_sort Pohit, Sanjib
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Lately, India’s trade policy seem to lack a vision. After actively pursuing it for over a decade, India decided against joining RCEP at the eleventh hour. The official version is that India runs a large trade deficit with RCEP countries, and was expecting specific protection for its industry and farmers from a surge in imports, especially from China. Since that did not materialise, the government of India does not foresee any gain from joining RCEP. Moreover, it may hamper India’s Make in India programme. In hindsight, this may be an afterthought of signing several free trade agreements (FTAs) with Far East countries/blocs (Korea, ASEAN, Japan) in the past (under UPA), the gains of which are not clearly visible. In fact, the official view is that poor negotiations of FTAs under previous governments have harmed Indian industry, and led to a distorted trade balance. While the outcome variable (distorted trade balance) is shown by statistics, the factor behind this trend needs in-depth introspection. The question is whether these FTAs escalate the non-tariff measures (NTMs), leading to higher trade deficit. This is indeed a possibility if policymakers didn’t pay enough attention to creating a complementary ecosystem, in terms of trade facilitation measures for efficient functioning of the trade regime, at the time of signing of FTA.
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spelling CGSpace1432722025-11-24T11:21:10Z What ails India’s free trade agreements? Pohit, Sanjib Pal, Barun Deb free trade agreements trade liberalization trade international trade Lately, India’s trade policy seem to lack a vision. After actively pursuing it for over a decade, India decided against joining RCEP at the eleventh hour. The official version is that India runs a large trade deficit with RCEP countries, and was expecting specific protection for its industry and farmers from a surge in imports, especially from China. Since that did not materialise, the government of India does not foresee any gain from joining RCEP. Moreover, it may hamper India’s Make in India programme. In hindsight, this may be an afterthought of signing several free trade agreements (FTAs) with Far East countries/blocs (Korea, ASEAN, Japan) in the past (under UPA), the gains of which are not clearly visible. In fact, the official view is that poor negotiations of FTAs under previous governments have harmed Indian industry, and led to a distorted trade balance. While the outcome variable (distorted trade balance) is shown by statistics, the factor behind this trend needs in-depth introspection. The question is whether these FTAs escalate the non-tariff measures (NTMs), leading to higher trade deficit. This is indeed a possibility if policymakers didn’t pay enough attention to creating a complementary ecosystem, in terms of trade facilitation measures for efficient functioning of the trade regime, at the time of signing of FTA. 2020-03-09 2024-05-22T12:12:50Z 2024-05-22T12:12:50Z Opinion Piece https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143272 en Open Access Indian Express Group Pohit, Sanjib; and Pal, Barun Deb. 2020. What ails India’s free trade agreements? Financial Express. First published online on March 9, 2020. https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/what-ails-indias-free-trade-agreements/1892598/
spellingShingle free trade agreements
trade liberalization
trade
international trade
Pohit, Sanjib
Pal, Barun Deb
What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title_full What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title_fullStr What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title_full_unstemmed What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title_short What ails India’s free trade agreements?
title_sort what ails india s free trade agreements
topic free trade agreements
trade liberalization
trade
international trade
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143272
work_keys_str_mv AT pohitsanjib whatailsindiasfreetradeagreements
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