India’s RCEP walkout shows its industry is still incompetent

If prime minister Narendra Modi hadn’t thrown a last-minute spanner in the works, the world’s biggest cross-border trade pact would have been inked by now. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), from which India pulled out earlier this month, proposed to create a common trade block comprising 10 ASEAN nations along with China, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Japan. India bolted at the prospect of cheap Chinese goods and dairy products from Australia flooding its market, citing the interests of its farmers and small businesses.