ASIATODAY.ID, VIENTIANE – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized his commitment to working with Southeast Asian countries. Modi conveyed this when speaking at the 21st ASEAN – India Summit, which took place at the National Convention Center, Vientiane, Laos, Thursday, October 10 2024.
PM Modi conveyed 10 proposed programs and commitments that India would provide to ASEAN in the framework of implementing the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership, namely: (1) Celebration of the ASEAN-India tourism year 2025 and India committed to providing funds of US$ 5 million; (2) Implementation of various performances related to culture, youth and start-up companies; (3) Implementation of annual activities under the ASEAN India Technology Fund; (4) Double the number of Masters Scholarship recipients at Narendra University and a special scheme will be prepared for agricultural sector campuses; (5) Acceleration of completion of ASEAN-India upgrading in 2025; (6) Collaboration on disaster resilience and will provide funds amounting to US$ 5 million; (7) Institute a Health Ministerial Level Meeting to support health resilience; (8) Digital and cyber resilience cooperation; (9) Green economic cooperation by conducting workshops; and (10) Climate resilience cooperation through tree planting campaigns.
Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, also spoke at the summit chaired by Laotian Prime Minister Sonexay Sipandhone.
India has been a comprehensive strategic partner of ASEAN. In the economic sector, the trade value of ASEAN and India over the last 10 years has doubled to more than US$100 billion in 2023.
In terms of human resource cooperation, India has provided more than 300 scholarships for ASEAN students. India has now also prepared a commitment of US$ 30 million for education and research funds focused on the green economy.
In this regard, Indonesia encourages strengthening cooperation in three fields.
First, maritime cooperation. Indonesia encourages concrete cooperation to implement the Join Statement on Maritime Cooperation, especially in the connectivity and blue economy sectors.
Second, food security cooperation as an implementation of the ASEAN-India Joint Leaders’ Statement on Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Response to Crises.
Third, strengthening cooperation within the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific (AOIP) framework.
Indonesia also expressed its appreciation for India’s support as the first development partner country of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) in development cooperation to achieve the IMT-GT Vision 2036.
Airlangga Hartarto on a separate occasion said that India was interested in investing in Indonesia in the pharmaceutical and health sectors. The concrete form of investment that will be implemented by India is a hospital construction project. This project will be built in a Special Economic Zone by collaborating with one of the hospital management company groups from Indonesia with the Apollo Hospital Group from India.
For information, ASEAN-India economic relations have an important role in maintaining stability and economic growth in Asia. ASEAN is currently the fifth largest economic power in the world, while India is a large economy with a high economic growth rate exceeding China.
In 2023, ASEAN-India trade will reach US$100.72 billion or equivalent to 2.9% of ASEAN trade. Meanwhile, investment from India to ASEAN was recorded at US$5.6 billion, contributing 2.5% of total FDI in the region.
The meeting closed with the adoption of two documents and one of them came from the economic pillar, namely the ASEAN-India Joint Leaders’ Statement on Advancing Digital Transformation. Apart from that, the leaders also noted the status of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) Review negotiations which are targeted to be substantially completed in 2025 as well as the agreement on the implementation of the ASEAN India Tourism Year 2025. (AT Network)
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