ASEAN, India cooperate

ASEAN, India cooperate

NEW DELHI (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said here yesterday that the seven-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India could prove to be a boon for each other.

"The expansion of ASEAN embracing all the 10 countries in SouthEast Asia will provide a large market and wider investment opportunities for Indian companies," Mahathir said in an inaugural address at the ASEAN-India lecture series here.

"ASEAN and India can also explore ways to jointly utilize our resources in regional activities such as the ASEAN-Mekong Development Cooperation and the sub-regional growth areas," he said.

"I would like to invite the Indian information technology companies to invest in the multi-media Super-corridor project which the Malaysian government is actively promoting."

At an informal summit in Jakarta last month, ASEAN leaders agreed to allow Burma, Laos and Cambodia to join simultaneously, but their entry date has yet to be specified.