Singapore: Singapore looks forward to deepening the partnership between India and the ASEAN, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday as he expressed hope that New Delhi would revisit the merits of joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in the future.
On November 4 last year, India walked out of the mega free trade agreement RCEP as negotiations failed to address New Delhi''s outstanding issues and concerns.
India's Act East policy expresses Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intention to unlock India's full potential through greater openness and integration with the East Asian region, Lee said.
As Singapore commences its term as coordinator of the ASEAN-India dialogue relations next year, Lee said his country looks forward to deepening the partnership between the two sides.
We have a broad agenda, but one step we hope India will take at some time in the future, is to revisit the merits of joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), said Lee at the launch of a book India on Our Minds .
Though India did not sign the RCEP deal, the remaining 15 member countries have signed it and have stated that the pact would remain open to India.
Now the members of RCEP are 10-nation bloc ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia), China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The 362-page book is co-authored by Singapore's Ambassador at Large, Professor Tommy Koh and Hernaikh Singh, Senior Associate Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, a think-tank at the National University of Singapore.