East Asia summit: Scott Morrison to urge India to sign up to largest trade pact in world

Scott Morrison will urge India to sign up to the largest trade pact in the world when he meets Narendra Modi today.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet for a bilateral meeting during the 2018 ASEAN Summit in Singapore.

Scott Morrison will today urge India to sign up to the largest trade pact in the world as leaders of 16 nations enter talks this afternoon at the East Asia Summit in an effort to seal a deal.

Speaking at a Thai Business Breakfast this morning in Bangkok, the Prime Minister said he wanted a high quality Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreed to this year.

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“RCEP countries together represent almost half of the world’s population, almost one third of global GDP,” he said. “Through this partnership, Australia aims to provide the certainty that investors need by securing commercially meaningful outcomes for goods, services and investment.

“It will ensure modern rules address contemporary business priorities and enable business to tap into regional value chains.

“And it will create further opportunities for Australian businesses, further integrate regional markets, lower trade barriers and boost export opportunities in our region.”

It was hoped an agreement would be reached at the summit or at least by the end of this year that would create the largest free-trading bloc in the world involving 16 nations and more than 3.5 billion people.

It is estimated the GDP of member countries would represent more than $200 trillion by 2050.

With India emerging as a last minute roadblock to a final agreement on RCEP over concerns about opening its markets up to free trade, it has been suggested that a final deal may proceed with India carved out.

Australian officials, however, said that there was still hope that India may be persuaded to sign up to join the RCEP agreement which would involve a free trade pact among the ASEAN nations and their existing free-trade partners of China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, ­Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Mr Morrison will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later today after a special RCEP summit following the official East Asia Summit leaders’ meeting in Bangkok.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, in Bangkok meeting ASEAN counterparts, had played down expectations of a major breakthrough on RCEP agreement at the summit but remained confident it would ultimately be landed.

In reference to India and China, the main roadblocks to an agreement, Mr Birmingham said: “There are still for some parties, significant negotiations in terms of their own market access exchanges — how much they are willing to lower tariffs, open up quotas between one another.”