RCEP did not adequately address India's concerns, FTA with

The RCEP did not "adequately" address India's concerns including over issues of non-tariff barriers to trade and opaqueness in subsidy regime in some countries, which forced it to back out from the trade deal, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Besides, the government is also going to review the free trade agreement between India and ASEAN countries by the previous governments saying that it has created trade imbalances, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said in a statement.

According to the minister, imports from these countries have increased much more than exports from India.

However, Goyal, who was replying to members in the Upper House, also assured them that India's Look East policy would continue.

"The government's priority is also to correct the asymmetry in the existing agreements and maximise its export potential to benefit domestic industry and farmers to promote Prime Minister's vision of Make in India and doubling farmers' income," said Goyal.

The minister also said that India would continue to engage with other countries as "equal partner and on the principle of reciprocity".

"We are working with our existing FTA partners like South Korea and Japan to address our concerns," said Goyal in his statement on trade agreements with RCEP countries.

He further added: "We have also secured an agreement to initiate a review of ASEAN-India Trade and Goods agreement to make the AIFTA more user friendly, simple and trade facilitative."
Asked about the consequences of not joining RCEP, the minister said, "The economy of the country would improve and there would be no unwanted imports."
"We should never shut the way. We have to navigate and this has to be done cleverly," said Goyal, adding "I assure that we would measure this way cleverly by keeping the nation's interest ahead and decide accordingly."
He said, "There is difference of opinion but we are still together. There are no grudges (RCEP me matbhed hue hain koi man nahi tuta hai. Koi manbhed nahi hai."
"Our export growth was very low in comparison to import growth," he said adding, "The review of FTA with ASEAN should have been done much earlier. No our government has started the process of review and has started discussions on that."