New Delhi: Asserting that “Make in India” has become “Buy from China”, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at the RCEP and alleged that the proposed free trade deal will flood the country with cheap goods, resulting in millions of job losses and crippling the economy.
Gandhi’s takedown of the proposed trade agreement came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Bangkok where negotiations for the long-overdue Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was heading towards finality.
“‘Make in India’ has become ‘Buy from China’. Each year we import Rs. 6,000 worth of goods from China for every Indian! A 100 per cent increase since 2014,” the former Congress chief said in a tweet.
“RCEP will flood India with cheap goods, resulting in millions of job losses & crippling the Indian economy,” Gandhi said.
His remarks come two days after Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a blistering attack on the government’s economic policies and said signing the RCEP agreement will deal a “body blow” to the economy, resulting in “untold hardship” for farmers, shopkeepers and small enterprises.
The proposed free-trade agreement includes 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and six of the bloc’s dialogue partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
The possible delay in firming up the RCEP during the three-day Asean summit in Bangkok has been attributed to India’s demands on market access and tariff-related issues.
Hardball negotiations to address sticky issues went down to the wire on Sunday, with India holding on to its demand for amicable resolution of its demands.
Also read: Signing RCEP will be ‘farmers destruction agreement’, says Priyanka Gandhi
My god, Rahul Gandhi is so so clueless. BJP actually pulled out of RCEP, he didn’t even know what happened. UPA entered RCEP in 2012, now BJP is cleaning the mess.
And Print, as usual spreads its virus like propaganda, doesn’t even show the entire thing that BJP actually pulled out of the RCEP deal. And people in the comment section actually believe in the article without doing complete research.
U r right .. he will be pappu forever and his supporters only knows spreading fake news and misinformation . I m suprised to see that the people who themselves entered in this agreement in their time are today given suggestions . Hahaa so funny it is ?
All political parties are the same. They pay lip service to the poor and ordinary consumer. But when it comes to the crux, their rich donors get priority. Taxing the ordinary poor consumer, via extortionate customs duties, in order to protect inefficient Indian industry. If even that fails, channel the ordinary saver’s funds to oligarchs via government run banks.
One must take serious issue with Mr Rahul Gandhi on this, despite aversion to raking up the past. Your government was in office from 2004 to 2014. How much reform did your family permit the team of PM and FM to undertake, to bring India on par with ASEAN ? Is it your vision that Indians should work on NREGA sites and be paid part of their wages in grain ?
One needs to plan for the future by learning from the past and acting in the present. Sadly all we get, across the political spectrum, is the urge to repeat the same old platitudes. Like the Bourbons “Nothing learned, nothing forgotten”.
Shri Rahulji, where was this tweet from? Malaysia, Thailand, England or Italy?