Manmohan Singh: India is ready to expand the FTA Provisions with ASEAN

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India on 19 November 2012 announced that India is ready to go for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in services and investment with the ASEAN members from December 2012, onwards. This step would bring a springboard expansion in the ties of the member nations with India bringing back immense opportunities to the country. This would also play an important role in the expansion of security, peace and stability, within the member nations.  The announcement was made by the Indian Prime Minister during the ASEAN-India summit in the Cambodian capital

To mark the 20th anniversary of its "Look East" Policy, and 10 year of summit level partnership, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in services and investment would be finalized before the 10-nation bloc comes to Delhi, India in December 2012 for a summit with India.

In the year 2009, India signed the FTA in Goods and since then it has been negotiating on the issues of extension of the investment and service sectors. India was successful in gaining 75 billion dollars by bilateral trade in 2011, which was 2.9 percent of the total trade of the block members.

The announcement also cleared that India-Myanmar-Thailand highway that is backed by the U.S., which would be operational by 2016 and would act as the Gateway for North East India to South-East Asia. The same announcement also cleared the fact of the alternative route that would connect the central or North Myanmar with Guwahati and Hanoi, on which the discussions were made during the trilateral meet between, India, U.S. and Japan.

ASEAN

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was created on 8 August 1967 at Bangkok, Thailand after ASEAN Declaration (also called Bangkok Declaration) was signed between the Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand. With time 5 more South Asian countries joined the group namely Brunei Darussalam joined on 7 January 1984, Viet Nam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. Today, ASEAN is a 10-member group by now.  The group was formed with a basic idea of promoting social progress, economic growth and cultural development between the member nations and talk on the differences in a peaceful manner.