India-ASEAN business summit opens Thursday

Tuesday, 15 October 2002, 19:30 IST
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The first India-ASEAN Business Summit, a precursor to the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations)-India summit scheduled in Phnom Penh, Cambodia next month, opens here Thursday with a view to expanding India’s economic ties with Southeast Asia.

NEW DELHI: The meet would provide a platform for government and private sector representatives to jointly explore avenues for trade and investment. The two-day summit, being organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICC) and the external affairs ministry, will open here Thursday and shift to Hyderabad on Friday. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad will address the session here while Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will inaugurate the meeting in Hyderabad. Indian economic experts say this is the right time to explore opportunities of trade with Southeast Asian nations because of the sluggish growth forecast in major markets like the U.S. and Japan. New Delhi has been pressing ASEAN to expand its plus three group of China, Japan and South Korea to include India, but the regional grouping has so far not agreed. "As India pursues a Look East policy, the India-ASEAN summit is a positive step on the business and trade front," said Dilip Chenoy of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which had held an India-ASEAN business dialogue in Kuala Lumpur. Being part of a regional economic bloc would be to India's advantage as it is currently not part of any such grouping, felt Chenoy. As a trading bloc, the ASEAN region has been recording rapid growth, with intra-regional trade volumes rising from $82.4 billion in 1993 to $168.3 billion in 2000. Around 200 delegates from the 10 ASEAN countries -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- are expected to attend the India-ASEAN Business Summit to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The session in New Delhi will focus on cooperation in infrastructure, oil and gas, trade, investment, finance and tourism while the one in Hyderabad will concentrate on human resources development, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals and IT. "Participation in such a forum would open a dialogue in the region and lead to better understanding," felt Rajesh Chadha, economic advisor to the National Council for Applied Economic Research. Chadha, however, did not favour regional blocs. "Multilateralism or the process of globalisation has not gained because of a rise in regional trade blocs," he said. While ASEAN's share in worldwide exports doubled between 1980 and 2000, India has not been able to match the growth of the member states, according to a FICCI study. Two-way trade between India and ASEAN, which stood at $3.5 billion in 1991, had risen three-fold by 2000 to surpass the $10 billion mark. Among ASEAN members, Singapore and Malaysia have been India's most prominent trading partners while this country's trade with Laos has been the least in value terms. The trade turnover declined in 1997 and 1998 due to the economic meltdown in Southeast Asia. The decline was essentially due to a sharp fall in India's exports, but there has been a recovery since 1999. India's exports to ASEAN at $3.6 billion in 2001 were well below the high of $4.2 billion attained in 1996. "Growth in India's exports to ASEAN in recent years has been much higher in comparison with other important destinations. The same, however, cannot be said for its imports from ASEAN as some other regions have achieved faster growth," says the FICCI study.
Source: IANS