At the Third RCEP Summit earlier this week, held in Bangkok as part of a series of meetings under the banner of the ASEAN Summit, the leaders of 15 countries announced that they had concluded text-based negotiations of the trade pact, but left the door open for India to resolve domestic issues that had led it to pull out of the deal.

 “This [agreement] was mooted by ASEAN. ASEAN put this forward and [it was] agreed by everyone, and following that we started negotiations in 2013 in Brunei,” Lim told journalists in a briefing in Jakarta on Thursday. “It was very much coordinated and led by Indonesia,” he added.

The idea was first floated as a trade agreement under the ASEAN Plus Three mechanism, which serves as a cooperation platform for ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea, but was later expanded to include other dialogue partners India, Australia and New Zealand.

 “ASEAN has an FTA [free trade agreement] with each of the dialogue partners, [so] we thought it was good to put them together under one big umbrella to enhance trade and investment in the region,” he explained.

Initiated in 2012, the RCEP includes all 10 ASEAN member states and its six dialogue partners. The 16 countries represent 3.4 billion people and a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of about one third of the world, making the RCEP a highly strategic agreement for its members.

However, disagreements between regional rivals, mainly between China and India over access to India’s giant consumer market, hampered negotiations up to the last minute on Monday, which prompted India to withdraw from the pact.

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