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Wednesday, May 04, 2005

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National

Panel on trade, economic ties

Amit Baruah

Chaired by the Prime Minister, body to act as `think tank' for economic aspects of foreign policy

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set up a "trade and economic relations committee", comprising senior Ministers and officials, to take quick decisions on economic aspects of the country's foreign policy.

The Prime Minister's Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru told presspersons on Tuesday evening that the committee would be chaired by Dr. Singh and would have the Finance, External Affairs and Commerce Ministers — P. Chidambaram, Natwar Singh and Kamal Nath — as members.

Conceived of as a "think-tank" and "implementation mechanism", it has Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission M.S. Ahluwalia, chief of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister C. Rangarajan, head of the National Manufacturing and Competitiveness Council V. Krishnamurthy, and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan as members. Mr. Baru stressed that if required, other Ministers could be invited to attend the committee's meetings.

For instance, if the Prime Minister were to discuss the issue of a high-speed rail corridor with Japan, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad would be involved.

Mr. Baru said the focus areas of this committee, for instance, would be the forthcoming visits of Dr. Singh to the U.K. in July for the G8 summit and to the U.S. This was not another Cabinet committee, he said.

Mr. Baru said that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong, who met Dr. Singh in Indonesia, would come to India in the next couple of months to sign the Indo-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement.

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