India-EU Free Trade Agreement: Potential Impact on the North East India

Starting from the 1990s, the Northeastern part of India became an extremely important strategic area for the policy-makers in New Delhi. For example, policy-makers in order to make a foray into the domain of South East Asia and East Asia initiated what is today known as the Look East Policy so as to forge a greater economic and strategic tie with Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Although a byproduct of post-Cold War geo-political reconfigurations, the significance and necessity of the policy could be seen as a foreign policy response on the part of India. Also, such developments provided the grounds for opening up of India’s economy to global capitalism. Other than signing Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) with the ASEAN in 1990, other RTAs that have potential impact on the Northeast include agreements undertaken with countries such as Thailand and Singapore. Negotiations having similar interest and ones that would potentially impinge upon the Northeast is underway with the BIMSTEC Group, China and Malaysia, etc. The recent most case is the proposed India-EU Free Trade Agreement.

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