Govt Puts Faith In Ties With Asean Despite Crisis

The government yesterday tightened links with the Aseanby placing faith in the region despite the recent months of economic turmoil.

Foreign secretary K Raghunath told the opening of a one-day Asean-India senior officials meeting here that far from denting appetite for co-operation, the South-East Asian crisis had provided a new rationale for closer trade links.

The meeting was the first of its kind since India became a full dialogue partner of Asean in 1995.

Trade between India and Asean countries currently stands at around $6.5 billion a year.

, up from $3.2 billion in 1991..

Addressing his counterparts from seven Asean countries and senior officials from all nine, Raghunath said right now it was important to keep faith in Indo- Asean cooperation.

 

Our preoccupation with domestic, economic reordering and social concerns, and the mounting competitive pressures could put the prosper the neighbour policy of Asean and India under strain, he said.

However, he welcomed Aseans affirmation at its informal summit in December that it would continue outward looking policies and would seek to intensify its relationship with dialogue partners.

Raghunath said recent developments had underlined the need to make a realistic assessment of problems which could arise in links between Asean and India, and could show the way to new opportunities.

For example, we are looking with interest at transitional mechanisms that can be put in place by us or that we can participate in to facilitate the financing of trade and joint ventures between India and Asean, he said.

While this could include government-to-government credit, Exim bank credit and special payment arrangements, the government was also interested in looking at proposals on the provision of import guarantees for some of the hardest-hit Asean countries.

The meeting, which also covered strategic and defence issues, was hailed by Singaporean permanent secretary for foreign affairs Kishore Mahbubani as a major milestone in Asean-India relations.