INDIA AND ASEAN

FILLING THE STRATEGIC SPACE IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

To fulfil Asean’s need for a regional balancing power, India must prove itself as a credible security and economic partner

Harsh V. Pant

The Hindu, December 22, 2012

This week India and the ten-member Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) marked their 20 years of partnership with a commemorative summit in New Delhi. The significance that Asean members are increasingly according India can be gauged from the presence of the Prime Ministers of Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, the Presidents of Myanmar and Indonesia and the Vice-President of Philippines in India for the India-Asean summit. The highlight of the summit was clearly the conclusion of talks on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on services and investment which is expected to increase bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2022 and lead to talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership which also includes Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underlined, together India and the Asean states “constitute a community of 1.8 billion people, representing one-fourth of humanity, with a combined GDP of $3.8 trillion” and therefore “it is only natural that India should attach the highest priority to its relationship with Asean.”

India was admitted as sectoral dialogue partner of the Asean in 1992 and went on to become a full-fledged dialogue partner in 1996. There has been a significant increase in India-Asean trade from $42 billion in 2008 to $80 billion last year. This trade relationship will get a further boost with the two signing the FTA on services and investment. The FTA on goods was signed in 2009 despite some significant opposition in India and since its implementation last year India has been keen on expanding trade in services in order to leverage its own strengths. The relationship is now officially ‘strategic’ with the two sides deciding to elevate their ties from a mere dialogue partnership.

(...) [article here]