Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) will cripple the Indian economy and ‘flood’ India with cheap goods which will cost millions of jobs. “Make in India has become buy from China. Each year we import Rs 6,000/ worth of goods from China for every Indian. A 100 per cent increase since 2014. RCEP will flood India with cheap goods, resulting in millions of job losses & crippling the economy,” Rahul tweeted, using India and China flag emoticons.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. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a three-day visit to Thailand. He will attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Bangkok today. Modi will also attend the RCEP Summit, where the leaders of the member countries will review the state of negotiations which are underway in Bangkok currently and will continue over the next few days. Ahead of 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.
