ASEAN-India connectivity seminar held in Bangkok

BANGKOK, December 3 (TNA) - A seminar on ASEAN-India connectivity was held in Bangkok Monday to promote business linkages between India’s Northeast and mainland Southeast Asia. Organized and hosted by the Indian Embassy to Thailand and the Confederation of Indian Industry a day after the launch of the “ASEAN-India Car Rally 2012”, the business seminar is part of a series of events, aimed at promoting transport connectivity between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). One of highlighted issues at the seminar was a trilateral India-Myanmar-Thailand highway, which would link the State of Manipur in India’s northeastern region to Thailand’s border town of Mae Sot in the northwestern Tak province. Once its construction is complete, scheduled for 2016, the highway will open up a direct land route between South Asia and Indochina, linking up with the existing East-West Economic Corridor in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). For India, the highway will also boost economic development of its northeastern region, a land-locked area comprising of 8 states which are connected to East India via a narrow corridor sandwiched between Nepal and Bangladesh with a combined population of around 39 million people sharing many cultural similarities with the mainland Southeast Asian people. Maritime linkages were also another highlight at the seminar, as the ongoing development of the Dawei deep seaport and industrial zone in Myanmar’s Andaman coast could expand connectivity with major port cities in India’s South like Chennai. Beyond the physical connectivity, the expansion of free trade agreements (FTAs) was also discussed, as Thai Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, who inaugurated the seminar, told TNA that Thailand and India appear to be in the final process of concluding an expanded bilateral FTA, which could later help boost the value of trade regionally. Presently, India-ASEAN trade is valued at about 80 billion US dollars annually and Anil Wadhwa, the Indian Ambassador to Thailand, said that the Indian government expects the value of India-ASEAN trade to double once the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) come into existence by 2015. This year India and ASEAN, meanwhile, marks the 20th anniversary of their dialogue partnership and, currently, India-ASEAN trade amounts to some 10 per cent of India’s overall global commerce. (TNA)