India-ASEAN trade ties

India-ASEAN trade ties

NEW DELHI (AFP): ASEAN and India have decided to step up cooperation and trade which has been described as falling short of its potential, officials said here.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretary general Ajit Singh told Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao during a meeting that ways to boost business ties and technology transfers would have to be explored further, they said.

Singh, who was leading a 40-member team from ASEAN member- countries, said over the weekend that there were vast possibilities in "banking, investment and tourism," following New Delhi's 1991 economic reforms which unshackled quasi-socialistic curbs.

Rao told Singh that impediments to trade and capital flows between India and the ASEAN -- grouping Brunei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- would be ironed out.

Trade between India and ASEAN increased 13 percent from 1990 to about US$2.5 billion in 1993. India's exports doubled to $1.5 billion and imports from ASEAN declined 32 percent to $991 million.