MARAN ATTENDS FIRST ASEAN ECONOMIC MINISTERS
MEETING AT BRUNEI
The First ASEAN Economic Ministers
(AEM) – India Consultation is being held on 15th September,
2002. The consultation will be co-chaired by Mr. Pehin Dato Abdul
Rahman Taib, Minister of Industry and Primary Resources, Brunei
Darussalam and Shri Murasoli Maran, Minister of Commerce and Industry,
India. Shri Maran has left for Brunei to attend the consultation.
India has had close cultural and
economic ties with Southeast Asian countries throughout history.
ASEAN's political and strategic importance in the larger Asia-Pacific
region and its potential to become a major partner of India in
the area of trade and investment have encouraged India to seek
closer linkages with these countries. After 1991 however, a conscious
effort was begun to reach out to these countries as part of our
'Look East' policy'.
India became a Sectoral Dialogue
Partner of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) in
1992 and Full Dialogue Partner in 1996. The Dialogue Partnership
with ASEAN has enabled India to significantly deepen its relationship
with its member countries. There are specialised Working Groups
in various areas namely: Science and Technology, Trade & Investment,
and Transport & Infrastructure where ASEAN and India are cooperating.
As Full Dialogue Partner, since 1996,
India has been participating at the ministerial level in the ASEAN
Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC), held in end-July every year.
In November 2001, the ASEAN-India relationship was upgraded to
summit level.
To further enhance the trade &
investment flows between India & ASEAN, a Joint Study was
conducted on ‘AFTA-India Linkages for the enhancement of Trade
& Investment’. The report recommends putting into motion a
mechanism for working out the institutional process for India
and AFTA to come together. The study proposes a Regional Trade
and Investment Area (RTIA) between India and ASEAN; and suggests
to begin with FTA in goods, which would subsequently cover services,
investments and trade facilitation issues.
ASEAN Senior Economic Officials Meeting
(SEOM) – India Consultations were held in Manila on 7th August
2002. The meeting discussed the report of "Study on AFTA India
Linkages for the enhancement of Trade & Investment".
The Senior Economic Officials decided
that an ASEAN India Expert Group be set up which shall study and
recommend measures to further enhance ASEAN India Trade &
Economic Cooperation and Integration towards closer economic partnership.
India is keen to engage with ASEAN
and would like to have a bilateral RTIA in the long term. It is
for this reason that the visit of Shri Maran gains importance
as India would like to have a clear road map for enhanced India
– ASEAN Economic Cooperation by following a building block approach
which needs to be done in a time bound manner. This forum of interaction
at the trade ministerial level will provide useful inputs to the
ASEAN India Summit scheduled for November, 2002.
