Starting a thread to understand RCEP and different thoughts around it. There seems to be consensus across political lines about RCEP though India prefers to engage with countries directly one on one than in a grouping. Almost all the economic forums have or will have political influence and bring with it host of challenges and opportunities. With RCEP it does feel like China is moving in where US/Trump left off turning it in their favor.
It might be based on nature of Indian economy compared to others in Asia or elsewhere, from Indian point of view, what things need to change for such engagements and on what basis India would engage in the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_ ... artnership
Signatories of RCEP are ASEAN + Japan, South Korea, China + Australia, New Zealand.
Articles
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... -politics/
https://www.globalasia.org/v14no4/featu ... aram-panda — very good article
RCEP and global economic forums
Re: RCEP and global economic forums
The RCEP is focussed primarily on goods while India's strength in services is very competitive.
none of the RCEP members is keen on allowing India access to the services in their markets while every man jack of these countries is very keen to access India's huge markets for finished/semi finished goods.
The RCEP haven't changed their position in years, all the while hoping to coerce/intimidate India economically into opening her markets to them probably hoping that trump would set a precedence by forcing Modi to buckle under ameriki pressure.
they will wipe out our industries with their cheap goods flooding in which seems to be their primary goal to lock down the Indian market with their goods and shut out Indian manufacturing with differential pricing.
we had, only recently, landed up in a similar situation with essential drugs and APIs flooding in from china while Indian manufacturers could not match the price and gradually shut down production in India leaving the field almost completely to the hans.
lucky for us that mms and the congis are far away such decision making processes.
none of the RCEP members is keen on allowing India access to the services in their markets while every man jack of these countries is very keen to access India's huge markets for finished/semi finished goods.
The RCEP haven't changed their position in years, all the while hoping to coerce/intimidate India economically into opening her markets to them probably hoping that trump would set a precedence by forcing Modi to buckle under ameriki pressure.
they will wipe out our industries with their cheap goods flooding in which seems to be their primary goal to lock down the Indian market with their goods and shut out Indian manufacturing with differential pricing.
we had, only recently, landed up in a similar situation with essential drugs and APIs flooding in from china while Indian manufacturers could not match the price and gradually shut down production in India leaving the field almost completely to the hans.
lucky for us that mms and the congis are far away such decision making processes.
Re: RCEP and global economic forums
I think at this point of time very good to stay of RCEP, Australia NZ can supply food, I see countries like Myanmmar will get further shafted by RCEP.
Re: RCEP and global economic forums
Aren't most of the so called ASEAN countries essentially assembling and then re-exporting made in chin goods? How much value add do these really do? My guess is negligible.
Re: RCEP and global economic forums
Given how uncompetitive our manufacturing is currently, and that these same countries aren't willing to offer us similar market access for services, it was a very good decision by the government. In the past, we have been fooled into such trade deals, like the FTA agreement with ASEAN, which has allowed countries like Indonesia to profit and drive out local manufacturers.
Re: RCEP and global economic forums
Yes and the value is tremendous in that it is an advantage to the "China Plus One" strategy now in vogue in the global corporate world.vimal wrote:Aren't most of the so called ASEAN countries essentially assembling and then re-exporting made in chin goods? How much value add do these really do? My guess is negligible.
For Apple or Samsung to move a production line from Cheen, they will still need interim imports of parts from their established Chinese plants until the local eco-system is built up. This could take months but most likely years. Companies will look for places with the smoothest access to their old plants while making this move. This is why Vietnam had been getting the lion's share of the MNC lines diversifying from Cheen.
RCEP will codify the advantages that Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. have in grabbing the lines in the global rebalancing from Cheen.
For India, the gains from grabbing those lines from Cheen might not be worth the losses to Cheen and the other RCEP members. So we might not have a choice in the matter.
Apple and Samsung might come anyways because of the huge size of India's internal market and they can force Foxconn to make the move but it will take time to develop the local eco-system sans parts from Cheen. In the meantime, Vietnam and other countries in ASEAN will become entrenched in the ex-Cheen supply chain supplying the rest of the world. It is already happening.