The Hindu : National : Impetus to ‘Look East’ policy

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Monday, Jun 25, 2007
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National

Impetus to ‘Look East’ policy

Sandeep Dikshit

India, Thailand to sign two agreements
Indian, Indonesian defence officials hold talks

NEW DELHI:

NEW DELHI: India’s ‘Look East’ policy will get an impetus with visits by the Prime Ministers of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia over the next three weeks. The visits closely follow External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s tour of Indonesia and Singapore as part of the ‘Look East’ diplomatic initiative.Thailand Prime Minister and the former army chief, Surayad Chulanont, will arrive on Monday. Foreign, Commerce and Energy Ministers are coming with him to discuss the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement. Besides calling on President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Gen. Chulanont will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will also meet Dr. Singh and other senior Ministers during his three-day visit early next month. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will arrive a couple of days later.

A Thai business delegation had come earlier and is now touring the North-East. The early harvest scheme (in which duty for select tariff lines has been pared) with Thailand has shown encouraging results although the balance of trade in these products is tilted in Thailand’s favour. Having built up healthy reserves of foreign exchange, Bangkok is looking at investment avenues in India.

During Gen. Chulanont’s visit, two important agreements will be signed: a memorandum of understanding on enhanced cooperation in renewable energy and another on cultural programme. Gen. Chulanont will visit Varanasi, Sarnath and Kolkata.

The ‘Look East’ policy got off the ground in the early 1990s and received closer attention in recent years. The first BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Cooperation; Myanmar joined later) summit was held in July 2004 after about a decade of groundwork. India has played a leading role in promoting the regional arrangement.

It is also active in the Thailand Mekong Ganga Cooperation Project (India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) with all but India being members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The project aims at revitalising and developing overland trade, tourism, communications and transport.

Indian defence officials met their Indonesian counterparts as a follow-up of Mr. Mukherjee’s visit and discussed areas of mutual cooperation. The two sides considered the possibility of India servicing Russian-origin Sukhoi planes with Indonesia as also alliances between their defence companies.

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