Trade minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday defended India’s changed position at the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) trade bloc, where it has agreed to provide similar tariff cuts to all member-countries with limited deviation, holding that India has the option of phasing out tariffs at a different pace for different countries. However, she disagreed that India’s changed position is a giveaway to other member-countries. Sitharaman said India has weighed its options on how to move forward. On concluding RCEP negotiations, Sitharaman said though many countries wanted it to be finalized by December this year, it can only be concluded sometime in 2017. Biswajit Dhar, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said India should first focus on domestic regulations in other RCEP countries.

Source: Mint August 24, 2016 19:18 UTC