NEW DELHI: Stating that the two-way trade of $10 billion has "barely scratched the surface" of its potential, Vajpayee said: "We must aim high, and target a turnover of $15 billion over the next two years and $30 billion by 2007." The prime minister was inaugurating at Vigyan Bhavan the second three-day India-ASEAN Business Summit, described by him as the "curtain raiser" for the India-ASEAN Summit of heads of state and government in Bali, Indonesia, in October. Senior ministers of the ASEAN nations are leading their respective delegations to the business summit. India and ASEAN institutionalised annual political summits last year when India, a dialogue partner of ASEAN, was invited for the ASEAN summit in Cambodia for the first time. Some 200 businesspersons from the 10 ASEAN countries and 500 Indian businessmen are participating in the business summit, the first two days of which will be held here and the last, on Saturday, in Mumbai. All the 10 ASEAN countries are represented by their commerce ministers. The conference has been organised jointly by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the apex business bodies of the ASEAN countries. "Trade and investment are the basic building blocks of the India-ASEAN relationship," Vajpayee said and added the strength of the investment linkages between the two sides is in their "two-way flows." Vajpayee offered to share with the ASEAN India's expertise in space technology for developmental applications, like natural resources mapping, flood forecasting and hydrology. "We can expand this cooperation to the manufacture and launch of remote sensing and communication satellites," he said and noted that India had built and launched a number of satellites, both for itself and for other countries. "We can offer this service to ASEAN countries at considerably less cost than what they incur at present," he said.
Source: IANS