FICO demands to exclude bicycle, machine tools, sewing machine, plywood, hand tools & fasteners related items from RCEP’s FTA

Ludhiana, October 24, 2019: Federation of Industrial & Commercial Organization popularly known as FICO’s All Industrial Divisions meeting held under the chairmanship of S.Gurmeet Singh Kular President, along with S.Raghbir Singh Sohal Head FICO Plywood Division, S.Gurmukh Singh Rupal Head FICO’s Sewing Machine Division, S.Ashpreet Singh Sahni Head FICO’s Agriculture Division, S.Manjeet Singh Matharoo Executive Member, Shri Pawan Garg Executive Member & S.Gagnish Singh Khurana Executive Member FICO, regarding the effects of RCEP’s Free Trade Agreement on MSME Sector.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a Free Trade Agreement being negotiated involving 16 countries namely ten countries of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and their six Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners i.e. Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, which would result in trade between the above mentioned countries without any custom duties. In other words, the goods/ material imported from China to India, will not be having any custom duty/ import duty over it.

Machine Tools, Sewing Machine, Hand Tools, Fasteners, Plywood manufacturers industrial sectors comprises of only MSME Units, just like the bicycle industry. So, these industries will be hit very hard by RCEP’s FTA, and will eventually face closure in India. MSME’s are the backbone of any economy, they are the real tax payers, real employment generators for a nation. So, closure of MSME’s will directly hit the growth of the nation. India is not at all compatible for RCEP’s FTA right now.

FICO urged Shri Piyush Goyal Honorable Minister for Commerce & Industry, to kindly exclude the bicycle, machine tools, sewing machine, plywood, agricultural implements and other related items from RCEP’s FTA.