New Delhi, Oct. 18 -- The Modi government's trade agreements are "well crafted" and "thought through" in national interest unlike the Congress-led UPA regime that "voluntarily" tried to open Indian market for competitors like China, Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday, adding that India is currently discussing free trade deals with the EU, the US, Chile, Peru, New Zealand and Oman. "If you see the kind of FTAs (free trade agreements) that we are working on, you'll find a clear shift away from countries which are competitors to India," he said, recalling the move of Congress-led UPA regime in 2011-12 when the Manmohan Singh government "voluntarily chosen to start discussing the RCEP [Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership] and engage" with a grouping which included China. Goyal made the remarks during ASSOCHAM's annual conference in New Delhi while replying to a specific question about the Modi government's bilateral trade engagements and strategy behind recently concluded and ongoing negotiations for FTAs. "Till today, I've not been able to figure out why we [the UPA regime] chose to get into discussions with RCEP? We were not a part of the original group. It was ASEAN (10 countries), Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and China. We were not there," he said. According to the minister, the commerce ministry's archive does not have any official record giving reasons for the UPA government's participation in RCEP negotiations. "The files don't seem to give any explanation; I have tried that route also. The only thing that we have is the image of the general secretary of the then ruling party signing a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Communist Party. So, one doesn't know if there's any connection between the two," he said. In order to protect national interest, the Modi government decided to exit from the FTA. "On 4th November [2019], the Prime Minister stood before the whole world and announced India will not join RCEP. And that was a bold decision. Nobody expected it. But, that saved the Indian industry," he said, adding that a vast majority of India Inc was against the deal. "It was only an agreement between China and India. [as] we already had an FTA with ASEAN" that is by itself "questionable in terms of fairness and equity", he added. The FTA with ASEAN was signed by the then commerce minister Anand Sharma on August 13, 2009, and came in force on January 1, 2010. It adversely impacted India, particularly because of its weak provisions for "rules of origin" that led to massive dumping of Chinese goods via some of the 10 ASEAN countries -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In national interest, India insisted on reviewing the skewed clauses of its FTA with ASEAN and the process is on. HT reported about it on July 7, 2025....