The world’s largest trade bloc launches today – January 1, 2022

The new Asian regional trade pact, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, becomes effective as of today. The RCEP is the world’s biggest free trade agreement, larger than the EU, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the EU, the Mercosur trade bloc in South America, and the recent US-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

RCEP includes all the ASEAN countries (Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Philippines and Cambodia), plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. And China. India pulled out of negotiations last year because of concerns it would not be able to protect its domestic industry as well as its agricultural sector. India’s exclusion from the bloc reduces its size by some 1.4 billion people. But the statement from the signatories said “the door is still open for India…