NEW DELHI: The “momentum” at which linkages between India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has picked up was described as “palpably accelerating” by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee during his inaugural address yesterday at the two-day conference on Delhi Dialogue.
“Our bilateral trade, which was $2.5 billion in 1993-94, crossed $38 billion in 2007-08 and is expected to reach $50 billion by 2010 — a target set at the India-ASEAN Summit in Singapore,” he said.
“This seminar has taken on a new meaning altogether in our complex times when the world is beset with an unprecedented economic crisis — the worst in nearly 75 years — affecting all of us in varying degrees of intensity,” Mukherjee said. “The situation provides both a challenge as well as an opportunity, reflected in the evolution of an Asian response to this crisis, by developing its own model of inclusive economic growth,” he said.
With ASEAN nations having met the challenges of the 1997-98 crisis well, Mukherjee expressed hope they would be able to deal with such crises in future too. “Our inter-linkages provide the basis for exploring the possibility of regional financial arrangements which will mitigate the growing risks from the current negative economic outlook,” Mukherjee said.
“I believe India will both benefit from and contribute to financial cooperation in Asia. It will meet our enormous demand for investment in infrastructure development and will contribute toward relative stability of exchange rate and also facilitate regional trade,” he said.
Taking note of increasing energy demands in Asia, Mukherjee said, “The trend toward inter-connectedness needs to grow much more ... The ASEAN region has oil, gas, coal, hydro, bio-mass and geo-thermal resources. A carefully calibrated strategy can help our region to grow on an ecologically sustainable basis and through diversified economic and trade linkages which is the best way to cushion ourselves from the energy security point of view.”
