India seeks comprehensive cooperation with ASEAN

India is among the Asian dialog partners of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is to attend the Second India-ASEAN Summit on Wednesday in Bali. The Jakarta Post's Kornelius Purba spoke with Indian Ambassador to Indonesia Hemant Krishan Singh on the visit. The following is an excerpt of the interview.

Question: Could you tell us a little more about the planned visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee? Answer: My Prime Minister is looking forward to attending the Second ASEAN-India Summit in Bali on Oct. 8. Since the first Summit held last year, and in keeping with decisions taken at that Summit, both ASEAN and India have worked to develop concrete and positive outcomes from the Second Summit.

We are happy to have reached a stage where we will be able to make quick progress (in ASEAN-India relations). At the Second Summit, we will be concluding a Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and India, which will be signed by heads of state and governments.

We will also be acceding to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia. The Summit will also adopt an ASEAN-India Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism.

Could you explain the latest developments in relations between India and ASEAN?

We have made very rapid strides in our relations with ASEAN over the last 11 years. We were late starters, but the pace of progress has been excellent, particularly in the past year, bringing us to a situation where we will be signing three major agreements at this Summit.

The process began in 1992, when we became sectoral dialog partners. In 1995, we became a full dialog partner when we also joined the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum). In 2002, India became a Summit-level dialog partner to ASEAN.

In the meantime, much thought has been given on both sides to achieving the potential of the relationship, particularly in the economic field. By the time we came to the First Summit last year, there was agreement among the leaders that we needed to work on a Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation. This was successfully negotiated, and will be one of the major achievements of this Summit.

We have also decided over the last year that India will accede to the TAC, which is a model for developing inter-state relations and resolving disputes and differences through peaceful dialog.

There are fears here over the growing rivalries between regional superpowers like India, China and Japan. Your comments?

As far as we are concerned, we view this not as a situation of emerging rivalries, but a situation of emerging partnerships. These partnerships are emerging between ASEAN and Japan, between China and ASEAN, and now also the partnership between ASEAN and India.

And when you talk about partnership between countries -- in this case between the regional grouping of ASEAN and major countries of Asia -- you are basically looking at the importance each side attaches to building its relationship with the other, good political understanding, forward looking economic ties, trade liberalization and investment regimes, which can bring mutual benefits.

We look at it, therefore, as a much more wholesome package of regional partnerships. As far as related countries are concerned, we enjoy excellent relations with China -- our relationship is growing both in terms of political understanding and in terms of our economic relationship.

Both of us are quite clear (as to) how important our relationship is for the prosperity, stability and peace of our Asian continent and beyond. Similarly, India has a long-standing economic relationship with Japan.

How will ASEAN and India develop their relationship?

What the Framework Agreement really envisages is an India- ASEAN Trade and Investment Area (RTIA), whose components include free trade in goods and services and a very highly liberalized investment regime, which benefits the countries of the RTIA.

The second component is that we are committed to developing our political relationship. We also believe that one of the common challenges of the day that we are faced with in India and in this region, is that of combating terrorism.

We are also developing functional cooperation with ASEAN, which is conducted under the ASEAN-India Cooperation Fund, provide by India every year to the ASEAN Secretariat.

The main activities concern science and technology issues, sharing the strengths of India in various fields of science or technology, whether it is agricultural technology, information technology, bio-technology or space technology and its applications.

India has a major human resource development program for ASEAN countries and offers special programs to the CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam) countries under the Initiative for ASEAN Integration.

What is the current trade volume between ASEAN and India?

At the moment, we have a trade turnover of roughly US$13 billion. Trade is increasing very rapidly, and we are targeting a turnover of $30 billion by 2007.

We are quite hopeful that we will be able to achieve this, especially as we are taking new initiatives by signing the Framework Agreement and by commencing work on the free trade area, which will be launched in January 2006.

What are your thoughts on bilateral relations between Indonesia and India?

We are looking forward very much to my Prime Minister's meeting with the President of Indonesia on the margins of the ASEAN Summit. This will be continuing a tradition of annual exchanges between us at the highest level.

We attach importance to our relations with Indonesia in both the bilateral and regional contexts. Indonesia is an immediate neighbor for us. Like India, Indonesia is a large, diverse, pluralistic democracy.

We share the values of democracy and pluralism between us, and considering that we are the two largest pluralistic democracies in Asia, it is natural that we need to work together ... We have a lot of experiences to share. As Asia's largest pluralistic democracies, we have a mutual stake in each other's prosperity, stability and territorial integrity.