India’s Involvement in Regional Trade Agreements: Is it a Second Best Strategy?

There is no systematic evidence that ‘trade creation’ will always outweigh the ‘trade diversion’ effect while countries are engaged in regional trade agreements (RTAs). Despite that countries are now rapidly engaged in various RTAs which include even partners beyond their own region. India’s engagement in various RTAs may be due to the effect of ‘competitive regionalism’ which is apparent in Asia-Pacific region or alternatively shaping up the strategy of reducing MFN rate. Moreover, India is taking up RTA route to push exports of service sector as well. The current analysis makes an attempt to assess nitty-gritty of RTAs where India is involved and explore its strategy in details considering its regional preference, timeline, product coverage etc.