Is It Finally Time for India’s Free Trade Agreements? The ASEAN “Present” and the RCEP “Future” Debashis CHAKRABORTY * Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, India dchakraborty@iitm.ac.in Julien CHAISSE ** Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR julien.chaisse@cuhk.edu.hk Xu QIAN *** Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR xuqian@link.cuhk.edu.hk Abstract Since the inception of the WTO in , India enthusiastically explored export-promo- tion strategies through multilateral trade reforms. However, the country has moved towards the regional trade route since , primarily owing to the slow progress of the Doha Round negotiations. As a result, the whole architecture of international trade law and governance is being redesigned in the Asia Pacific region. This paper focuses on the pivotal role played by India in this rebalancing. Given the stress on services exports and investment requirements, India focused on entering into comprehensive agreements encompassing merchandise and services trade as well as investment provisions. Presently, India is involved in the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership [RCEP] negotiations, where ASEAN remains at the core. The current analysis evaluates the Indo-ASEAN trade patterns and evolving dynamics over the last decade through select trade indices, and comments on the future of the RCEP. Given the slow progress of the World Trade Organization [WTO] Doha Round negotiations, the attractiveness of entering into Regional Trade Agreements [RTAs] has deepened during the last two decades.  WTO members are permitted to enter into RTAs under specific conditions within three sets of rules, Article * Professor of International Economics, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. ** Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong. *** Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Shujiro URATA, “Mega-FTAs and the WTO: Competing or Complementary” ()  International Economic Journal . Asian Journal of International Law,  (), pp. – doi:./S © Asian Journal of International Law,  https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2044251319000043 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 34.228.24.229, on 10 Jun 2020 at 04:50:24, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at