| Date: |
07-12-2015 |
| Subject: |
TPP agreement may not have much impact on India's trade: Study |
|
NEW DELHI: India is not likely to be impacted significantly from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a mega free trade deal between the US and other 11 nations, a report has said.
Government think tank Centre for WTO Studies has analysed this mega trade deal with reference to India.
It has, however, said that the mega trade deal could have a bearing on India's textiles and clothing businesses.
"We may not be impacted that much. We may loose a bit on textiles and clothing," Head of Centre for WTO Studies Abhijit Das said.
Vietnam, which is part of this trade pact, is a competitor of India in textiles sector in the American market.
On the thought of few industry leaders that India should join this agreement, Das said: "Joining TPP would have an impact on access to affordable medicines...overall the TPP template is not in India's interest".
Chandni Raina, professor at the Centre for WTO Studies, too said that access to generic medicines would be severely impacted by joining this agreement.
She said it would lead to delay in the entry of generic medicines because "when a generic applicant applies, his application would be set aside for unreasonable period of time".
Former Ficci President R V Kanoria said that India should have a calibrated approach to be part of any plurilateral trading blocs.
"We should dovetail our internal reform programmes in such a manner so as to become competitive and take advantage of such pacts," he said.
As many as 12 countries including the US, Australia and Japan had reached the final agreement on TPP, which aims to become the world's largest free-trade zone linking 40 per cent of the global economy.
TPP is billed as the largest regional trade pact.
India, too, is negotiating a mega trade deal - Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com
|