Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a three-day Thailand visit, will attend Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Summit today where the member countries will review the state of negotiations on forging what could become the world's largest trade bloc. 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.
Ahead of Prime Minister Modi's departure to Bangkok for a three-day visit, the Ministry of External Affairs had said that the Indian negotiators are resolving critical outstanding issues pertaining to the RCEP trade deal to ensure it is fair and transparent.
"There are some critical issues that are still outstanding; efforts are being made to resolve them to provide a fair and transparent trading environment. These issues are extremely important for our economy and livelihood of our people," Secretary (East) in Ministry of External Affairs Vijay Thakur Singh said.
PM Modi is also scheduled to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this morning and he will later attend the 14th East Asia Summit. The agenda of the meet would be to review the future direction of East Asia cooperation and exchange views on regional and international issues.
