India will not join a long-mooted, China-backed pan-Asian trade deal because it is dissatisfied with how its reservations about the agreement had been addressed, it said on Monday, even as 15 other participating nations agreed to forge ahead.
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, told countries at the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership summit in Bangkok that India would not sign off on the RCEP agreement, according to India’s foreign ministry.
The talks took place in conjunction with a summit of the Asean group of south-east Asian nations held on Monday in Bangkok. Thailand, which holds the rotating chairmanship of Asean, had hoped to wrap up the deal this week.