India's hesitation will not delay RCEP

Editor's Note: The third Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership leaders' meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov 4 issued a joint statement announcing that the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and ASEAN's six FTA partners - australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - had concluded negotiations on substantial issues and planned to sign an agreement by 2020. 21st Century Business Herald comments:

Shortly after the announcement, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to delay signing the agreement until "important issues" were resolved. India's "wobbling" not only casts a shadow over the RCEP's future, but has also caused an "ambiguous" attitude in Japan.

According to the 2018 data, the 15 member states of the RCEP, excluding India, have a population of 2.2 billion, a combined GDP of about $29 trillion, exports of $5.6 trillion, and a foreign investment flow of about $370 billion. With both the population and the economic size accounting for about one-third of the world's total, the RCEP, when completed, will be the world's largest regional trade agreement.