KACHARAGADLA

Singapore : India's position on trade agreements is under scrutiny after a group of 12 countries, led by the US, reached a tentative agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) earlier this week, a Singapore banking group said on October 9. While the TPP ratification by the signatories and other processes are expected to delay its implementation by a few more years, nonetheless India's patchy track record on free-trade agreements is feared to hurt latter's ambitious goals to double exports to $900 billion over the next five years, DBS group said in its daily economic report. Of the 12 TPP signatories, India has existing free trade/cooperation agreements with three. Negotiations are on-going with the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) member countries on a separate Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes China but not the US, it pointed out. India had expressed plans earlier in the year to join the APEC (Asia Pacific Econo