Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced a 10-point plan to strengthen the India-ASIAN partnerships which, he said, were critical to guiding Asia’s future.
Addressing the 21st India-ASEAN summit at Lao PDR, Modi emphasised the vibrancy of India’s Act East Policy and noted that in the last ten years India-ASEAN trade had doubled to over USD 130 billion.
“Today, India has direct flight connectivity with seven ASEAN countries, and soon, direct flights to Brunei will also commence,” he said. The prime minister also highlighted that significant progress has been made in restoration of shared cultural heritage in five ASEAN countries.
Modi’s 10-point plant to enhance connectivity and resilience included:
1. Celebrating the year 2025 as ASEAN-India Year of Tourism for which India would make available USD 5 million towards joint activities;
2. To celebrate a decade of Act East Policy through several people centric activities including Youth Summit, Start-up Festival, Hackathon, Music Festival, ASEAN-India Network of Think Tanks and Delhi Dialogue;
3. To organise ASEAN-India Women Scientists Conclave under ASEAN-India Science and Technology Development Fund;
4. Doubling the number of scholarships at Nalanda University and provision of new scholarships for ASEAN students at Agricultural Universities in India;
5. Review of ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement by 2025;
6. Enhancing Disaster Resilience for which India would make available USD 5 million;
7. Initiate a new Health Ministers’ track towards building Health Resilience;
8. Initiate a regular mechanism of ASEAN-India Cyber Policy Dialogue towards strengthening Digital and Cyber Resilience;
9. Workshop on Green Hydrogen
10. Invited ASEAN Leaders to join ‘Plant a Tree for Mother’ campaign towards building climate resilience
After the key summit, the leaders issued a joint statement on strengthening ASEAN-India comprehensive strategic partnership for peace, stability and prosperity in the region. According to a PMO statement, the leaders also appreciated India’s leadership in the field of digital transformation and welcomed partnership with India in digital public infrastructure.
Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the summit, Modi spoke to his counterparts in Japan and New Zealand—Shigeru Ishiba and Christopher Luxon, respectively.
Modi and Ishiba reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening India-Japan special strategic and global partnership through enhanced cooperation in a wide range of areas.
“Both leaders emphasized that India and Japan are indispensable partners for a peaceful, safe, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region and renewed their commitment to working together to achieve this goal,” the PMO said.
In their meeting, Modi and Luxon discussed ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation across a range of areas including trade and investment, defence and security, renewable energy, education, dairy, agri-tech, sports, tourism, space, and people-to-people ties.
“They noted that frequent high-level contacts have imparted a strong momentum to bilateral relations. In this context, they recalled the recent visit of the President of India to New Zealand, which was a huge success,” said the statement.
