Indian Youth Congress workers will be organising a protest outside Union Minister of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Giriraj Singh today against the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) deal.
According to the party, the deal will result in India importing cheaper milk and milk products from countries like Australia and New Zealand which will 'adversely affect the livelihood of over 50 million domestic milk producers of the country.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday embarked on a three-day visit to Thailand where he will be participating in the RCEP summit, where the leaders of the member countries will review the state of negotiations which are ongoing in Bangkok currently and will continue over the next few days.
Earlier this week, former MP and Swabhimani Paksha President Raju Shetti wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him not to go ahead with the agreement stating that it would have an adverse impact on the economy.
In a letter dated October 30, Shetti said that by signing RCEP, India will open doors for cheap imports of Dairy and other agricultural products which will affect the farmers.
"Not only will the Dairy and Agri sector but the other manufacturing sectors will also get affected. The steel industry has strongly opposed RCEP. Along with that, other sectors which are opposing and going to affect are paper, toy, electronics, medicine and generic medicines industries," the letter read.
Communist Party of India lawmaker Binoy Viswam on October 12 also wrote to Union Minister Piyush Goyal asking him to hold an urgent session of the Parliament to discuss the impact of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on India.
RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement among 10 ASEAN countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam and their six FTA partners China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
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