REGIONAL COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP (RCEP)

REGIONAL COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP (RCEP)

Members:

10 ASEAN members plus its free trade partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea)

• RCEP negotiations were formally launched in November 2012 at the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia.
• RCEP is viewed as an alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which includes the United States but excludes China.
• Started in 2013
• India has reduced trade tariffs by almost 40%
• Criticism is that the FTAs have not benefitted Indian companies- A setback to Make in India

From India’s point of view, the RCEP presents a decisive platform which could influence its strategic and economic status in the Asia-Pacific region and bring to fruition its “Act East Policy.” It is expected to be an ambitious agreement bringing the five biggest economies of the region – Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea – into a regional trading arrangement.

It would be the world’s largest trading bloc covering a broad spectrum of issues such as trade in goods, services, investment, competition, intellectual property rights, and other areas of economic and technical cooperation. Together, the RCEP group of countries accounts for a third of the world’s gross domestic product.

Source: the diplomat 

If India signs RCEP, it will not be the 'pharmacy of the world': Source: The Hindu: june 2016

Humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned India that the country will not remain ‘pharmacy of the developing world’ if the proposals in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) are adopted. The RCEP is a regional trade agreement being negotiated between the 10 ASEAN countries currently in Auckland.

MSF Access Campaign along with other civil society organisations are pushing for the removal of harmful intellectual property provisions that could potentially increase drug costs by creating new monopolies and delaying the entry of affordable generics in the market.

“Unless negotiators remove harmful provisions from RCEP, this trade deal is set to follow the dangerous path of the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which is recognised globally as the worst trade deal ever for access to medicines.