India to sign major pact with ASEAN

As part of its 'Look East' policy, India will sign with the ten-member ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) a major 'framework agreement' as a precursor to a free trade arrangement during a regional summit to be attended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Bali in Indonesia next week.

Vajpayee had suggested at the first India-ASEAN Summit last year in Phnom Penh in Cambodia that New Delhi and the grouping should enter into a free trade agreement.

"It is matter of great satisfaction to us that the Framework Agreement for this purpose has been finalized between India and ASEAN and will signed at the Second India-ASEAN Summit at Bali in a few days from now," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said earlier this week while addressing members of the Harvard faculty in the United States.

Sinha said: "T is major breakthrough should contribute

significantly to an increasing integration of the India - ASEAN economic space over the coming years, including a free trade agreement."

Vajpayee would also pay a bilateral visit to Thailand next week in the second leg of his two-nation tour and hold wide-ranging talks on terrorism and other key issues with the Thai leadership.

The fight against terror is also expected to figure high on Vajpayee's agenda during his meeting with ASEAN leaders in Bali.

Indonesia is currently the chair of the grouping, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Sinha said India is simultaneously negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand and a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore.

"These, along with measures to improve physical connectivity and transportation links such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway and the Delhi-Hanoi railway line, as part of the Ganga-Mekong project, will improve India-Asean linkages even further," the minister said while speaking at Harvard on the theme 'Resurgent India in Asia.'

"With ASEAN engaged in parallel negotiations on free trade arrangements with India, China, Japan and South Korea, we are now perhaps at the threshold of an Asian economic community," Sinha said.

Observing that the first phase of India's 'Look East' policy was ASEAN-centered and focussed primarily on trade and investment linkages, he said: "The new phase of this policy is characterised by an expanded definition of 'East,' extending from Australia to East Asia, with ASEAN as its core."

The new phase also marks a shift from trade to wider economic and security issues, including joint efforts to protect the sea-lanes for ensuring energy supply line and coordinate counter-terrorism activities, Sinha said.

Reports from Jakarta spoke of heavy security arrangements being made in the famous resort of Bali where 202 people mostly foreign tourists were killed in a terror attack on October 12 last year.

Delegations of senior officials from the 10 member nations and their full dialogue partners like India have begun reaching Bali to attend a series of preparatory meetings ahead of the arrivals of their heads of state or government on October 6.