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Abstract
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a large trade negotiation among 16countries of Asia Pacific which aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic andtechnical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights among these nations. The16 RCEP countries include China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the10-member ASEAN which represent more than 3.5 billion people and about 40 percent ofglobal GDP. There are worriesthat RCEP agreement will lead to large-scale import of manufactured goods from developedmembers of RCEP. Alsolower tariff programs will to enter more manufactured products to reach domestic market it will affect the local manufactures. RCEP is a trade agreement where associating countries agree upon decreasing or completely excluding tariff and non-tariff barriers on imports and exports. India’s trade deficit with the ASEAN bloc - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the five others in the RCEP pact - China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand is already massive, and only increasing every year. Trade deficit with the above countries which stood at $54 billion in 2013-14 had increased to $105 billion in 2018-19.