Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday night returned home from Cambodia after attending the ASEAN and East Asia Summits which provided India with an opportunity to enhance its economic cooperation with the region amid lingering financial crisis in the West.
"Greater connectivity is also central to the idea of regional economic integration," the prime minister said in his speech at the fifth India-ASEAN summit in Cebu, Philippines.
India is likely to play a bigger role when the 10-member ASEAN and six other Asian nations meet in the backdrop of differences between China and Japan.
The Indian armed forces, especially the Navy, are building partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region for peace and security, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, he said.
India wants more business and closer engagement with ASEAN even as China's influence spreads in the region. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, who is travelling with the prime minister on his visit to Brunei, reports from Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of the tiny oil-rich country.
The formalisation of Asean-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) covering the goods sector marks an important step towards India's deepening trade links with its partners in the Asian region.
He stressed that reform for him was just a way station on the long journey to the destination and the destination is the transformation of India.
The Asean secretariat hopes the meet may be able to iron out existing wrinkles raised by India. Since there had been no significant progress on the matter over the past two years on most issues, New Delhi is yet to decide on the invite.
The Quad has come of age and its agenda covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes it a force for global good, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the first summit of the coalition. In his opening remarks, he also talked about shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
Declaring that India was working on eliminating trade and investment barriers, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday advocated a trade turnover of $30 billion with ASEAN by year 2007.
Having initiated Regional Trade Agreements and done away with quantitative restrictions on imports, India said on Friday it was now looking at free trade agreement with ASEAN in the next 10 years.
A 'framework agreement' as a precursor to a free trade arrangement will be signed when the prime minister is in Indonesia next week.
After operationalising FTA in goods last year, both the sides were engaged in widening the base of the pact by including services and investments.
Giving a fresh impetus to its ties with ASEAN, India today said it would soon draft a five-year action plan starting 2016 for enhancing connectivity and cooperation in diverse areas and hoped the long-delayed free trade pact on services and investment will be signed later this month.
India and China have agreed to work towards a "roadmap" for rebuilding mutual trust following the border standoff in eastern Ladakh, according to a statement from the Indian Defence Ministry. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun in Vientiane, Laos, on the sidelines of a regional security conclave. Singh called for drawing lessons from the "unfortunate border clashes" of 2020 and emphasized the need for cooperation rather than conflict. Both sides agreed to work towards a roadmap for rebuilding mutual trust and understanding, and a meeting of the Special Representatives and Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism will also take place soon.
Seeking deepening of ties with ASEAN, India on Saturday said it would soon draft a five-year plan of action starting 2016 to take the "trajectories" of common interests with the 10-member grouping to a new level and particularly emphasised on improving connectivity in the region to further boost trade and people-to-people contact.
While addressing the 14th ASEAN-India summit, the PM noted that growing radicalism and spread of extreme violence are the other security threats.
The Jaishankar-Wang talks came amid the dragging border row in eastern Ladakh that entered its fifth year in May.
In an address at the Global Dialogue Security Forum, he underlined the need for India to put greater focus on having strong bilateral, trilateral and multilateral arrangements with like-minded countries to maximise its strategic leverage in the region.
In a significant move to strengthen economic ties, India and 10 Association of South East Asian nations on Tuesday decided to set up a Regional Trade and Investment Area
The Indian IT company in turn will host the cloud and mobile-based services in Singapore and Malaysia, while providing direct sales and IT services to clients throughout Association of Southeast Asian Nations region.
The SAARC nations have been more pragmatic than their peers in the ASEAN and EU, indicated an official source on the eve of the 17th SAARC Summit to be held in Male on November 10-11, even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left for Maldives for the SAARC Summit on Wednesday.
The US and Europe account for about one-third of India's exports.
Most Japanese and Chinese imported oil and one-third of the world's traded goods pass through this area in Southeast Asia.
The pact on trade in goods under the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement was signed by Indian commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma and ASEAN economic ministers after more than six years of intense negotiations.
Modi said India will continue its support to ASEAN for a rules-based security architecture for the region.
Saturday's Quad meeting in Delaware is taking place against the backdrop of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, its sabre-rattling in the Taiwan Strait and increasing footprints in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
These categories rank among India's top 10 export items by value.
The bilateral trade grew by 4.6 per cent from $68.4 billion in 2011 to $ 71.6 billion in 2012.
Pakistan and Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed to begin talks for a Free Trade Agreement to boost Islamabad's efforts towards achieving full dialogue partner status with the ten-member regional economic grouping.
This centre will cater to the infrastructure and application management service requirements of customers across the ASEAN region through a remote service delivery model.
India on Saturday offered to help south-east Asian nations in the management of natural disasters by sharing satellite data for the region and launching small satellites built by them. "We would be ready to share satellite data for management of natural disasters, launch small satellites and scientific instruments and payloads for experiments in remote sensing and communication for space agencies and academic institutions in ASEAN countries," PM Manmohan Singh said.
The agenda prepared by ministers will be discussed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other RCEP leaders in Nonthaburi, a city north of Bangkok, on November 4, the official deadline to close talks.
President Pratibha Patil arrived in the Vietnamese capital, Ho-Chin-Minh City on Monday, as part of a ten-day visit to Vietnam and Indonesia to bilateral ties with these economically and strategically important neighbours in the ASEAN region.
President Pratibha Patil on Monday embarked on a ten-day visit to Vietnam and Indonesia to give a new thrust to India's 'Look East' policy and bolster its bilateral ties with these economically and strategically important neighbours in the ASEAN region.
The majestic Rajpath saw a scintillating display of India's military might as the country celebrated its 69th Republic Day on Friday, with the leaders of all the 10 countries of the ASEAN attending the parade. Take a look here.
