Prabhu leads delegation for meeting of trade ministers of RCEP countries

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu is leading a delegation for the meeting for trade ministers of RCEP member countries, which are negotiating a mega-trade deal, in Singapore, beginning Monday.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a pact that aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

Trade Ministers of the 16-member RCEP are meeting in Singapore to continue to efforts to resolve the issues which are hindering the conclusion of the negotiations.

The chief negotiators had recently concluded the 24th round of meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, last month, the commerce ministry said in a statement.

The RCEP members include 10 ASEAN members – Brunei Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam and their 6 free trade agreement partners – India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

India already has a free trade agreement with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan and South Korea and it is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand.

India is pushing for liberalizing norms to promote services trade as the sector accounts for about 55 per cent of India's GDP. India is looking for a balanced trade agreement as it would cover 40 per cent of the global GDP and over 42 per cent of the world's population.

The ministerial meeting will be followed by the second RCEP Leaders Summit on November 14 in Singapore.