Soon after pulling out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the commerce ministry was suggesting placing renewed emphasis on the Look West Policy. This is clearly not an alternative to not joining the RCEP, and in some sense, not being a part of this century belonging to Asia.
India hardly has a presence in Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is non-functional. We don’t yet have a fully functioning India-Asean free trade agreement (FTA), nor India-Japan or India-Korea FTA. These are just signed agreements but not operating as full-fledged FTAs. Even our India-Singapore FTA is in limbo, with
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