India and SE Asian nations focus on economic ties

India and SE Asian nations focus on economic ties

Luke Hunt, Agence France-Presse, Phnom Penh

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ended an historic meeting with Southeast Asian leaders Tuesday with hopes of establishing a free trade agreement with Southeast Asian nations within a decade.

The leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) welcomed Vajpayee's determination to build stronger economic ties between the region and India, which has a middle class of 300 million people.

"The prime minister wants to work towards a free trade agreement with ASEAN within the next 10 years," Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said after the meeting, while emphasizing India did not want to be an economic threat to Southeast Asia.

"We are not in competition with ASEAN or any group of countries within ASEAN," Sinha quoted Vajpayee as saying.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said ASEAN and India had agreed that concrete co-operation between the two would be established within the next 10 years, and signaled greater opportunities to invest along the Mekong river, which runs through five Southeast Asian nations.

"We agreed to work together to broaden and intensify joint efforts in the Mekong basin," Hun Sen said.

Through a proposed Regional Trade and Investment Area agreement proposed during the meeting, their markets would be combined to include some 1.5 billion consumers and a gross national product of 1.7 trillion dollars.

Vajpayee's mission in Phnom Penh was the first time a leader from the subcontinent had addressed a summit, and all parties pledged to use the occasion as a platform to build stronger ties.

Although the talks were squarely focused on economic relations, Vajpayee also called for a unified effort "to fight the almighty scourge of terror".

The two parties discussed an agreement to develop concrete programs to jointly fight terrorism, piracy, drug and people trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering, economic crime and cybercrime.

While terrorism was briefly discussed at the meeting, ASEAN officials said India's long-running conflict with nuclear-rival Pakistan was not on the agenda.

And with the focus remaining on trade, Vajpayee obliged ASEAN leaders seeking Indian assistance to help technologically weaker countries.

"We want to deepen our linkages in trade, investment and technologies, especially high technologies," Sinha quoted Vajpayee as saying.

"We'd like cooperation between ASEAN and India in software and hardware technologies and pharmaceuticals."

India became an ASEAN sectoral dialogue partner in 1992 and was elevated to a full dialogue partner three years later, meaning the nations could hold talks at ministerial level.