Joint fight against terror and the need for early settlement of territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea figured prominently in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s discussions with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders and his counterparts from China and Japan.
The Prime Minister’s emphasis on tackling the scourge of terrorism came even as US President Barack Obama and his Malaysian host Najib Razak vowed on Saturday to fight the “evil” and “hateful” ideology unleashed by the Islamic State group, especially in the backdrop of last week’s terror attacks in Paris.
Starting his first set of engagements here during his five-day two-nation visit to Malaysia and Singapore, the Prime Minister also announced a $1-billion credit line to expand trade with ASEAN and prom-ised electronic visas soon for the nationals of its ten members.
He also asked the leaderships of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam to participate in the solar alliance he has proposed among 122 countries.
Addressing the ASEAN-India Summit here, Modi called for enhancing cooperations to tackle the major global challenge of terrorism.
“Terrorism has emerged as a major global challenge that affects us all here. We have excellent bilateral cooperation with ASEAN members. And, we should see how we can enhance our cooperation at the regional and international level, including through support for adoption of Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism,” he said.
Modi underlined the need for settling territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea through peaceful means. He suggested evolving specific plans for cooperation with the ten-member grouping in key areas of maritime security, counter-piracy and humanitarian and disaster relief.
“As our rapidly transforming region navigates its way through uncertain times to a peaceful and prosperous future, we look forward to ASEAN leading the way in defining the regional architecture,” said Modi.
Referring to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, he said, “India shares with ASEAN a commitment to freedom of navigation, over flight and unimpeded commerce, in accordance with accepted principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the law of the Sea. Territorial disputes must be settled through peaceful means.”
Modi said India hopes that all parties to the disputes in the South China Sea will abide by the guidelines on the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and redouble efforts for early adoption of a Code of Conduct on the basis of consensus.
Modi on Saturday also asked the global investment community to set up shop in India and benefit from its fast growth, strong fundamentals, constant reforms and a welcoming environment.
“By almost every major economic indicator India’s doing better than when we took office 18 months ago,” Modi said in his first regional meeting, the India-Asean Business Summit, and said this was visible in growth, inflation, interest rates, deficit, foreign capital inflows and tax revenues.
“Obviously, this did not happen by accident. The world economy is not exactly doing well. This success is the result of a series of concerted policies,” he said, adding the idea was not to reform alone but to reform for transformation.
“Most of the Asean economies have done their bit for Asia’s resurgence. Now it is India’s turn,” Modi said to loud applause. “We know that our time has come.”
Addressing the Asean-India Summit, Modi said he was pleased to see bilateral trade grow to $76.5 billion in 2014-15 after some decline, adding the regional grouping was India’s largest partner for investment in both directions.
He also raised the issue of climate change, ahead of the crucial 12-day global meet in Paris from November 30. “India has ambitious clean energy plans: 175 GW of additional capacity of renewable energy by 2022, and 40 per cent of energy through non-fossil fuel by 2030,” he said.
“I have also proposed an international solar alliance of 122 solar-rich countries, which French President (Francois) Hollande and I will launch in Paris on November 30. We look forward to your participation in the launch and the alliance.”
Modi also had several bilateral meetings on the margins of the summit, notably with Chinese Premier li Keqiang and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, who hosted him for lunch. In both meetings, held separately, the leaders said there was much to gain in their bilateral ties.
“India-Japan ties have the greatest potential of any bilateral relationship in the world,” said Abe. Premier li, on his part, said India and China have more common interests than divergences, with compatible development strategies that have the scope for further consolidation.
At the business summit, Modi outlined a host of measures taken to make his country an investment-friendly destination, notably through campaigns such as “Make in India”, “Digital India” and “Skill India”.
“I invite you to come and see the winds of change in India,” he said, adding: “Winds take time to cross the borders. That is why I am here to invite you, personally.”
Modi said his Government was working hard to cut complicated procedures and making them available on one platform, preferably online, besides simplifying paperwork on a war footing. “That’s how we have jumped up by 12 ranks in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report of 2016.”
This, he said, has also resulted in foreign investment inflows growing 40 per cent this year, and the country jumping six places in Unctad’s ranking of investment attractiveness and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, besides an outlook upgrade by Moody’s.
listing some recent initiatives, he said foreign equity caps were eased in some key sectors such as insurance, Defence and railways, permissions for approvals were placed under automatic route, foreign portfolio investment norms were relaxed and the regime of retrospective tax had ended.
“These are just a few examples. Almost on a daily basis, we are trying to remove the bottlenecks that were affecting our growth process. Even early this month, we took very dynamic steps to further open up the economy for foreign direct investment,” he said.
Modi said that reforms are ‘just a way station’ to transforming India and vowed to provide a transparent and predictable tax regime as well as protection to Intellectual Property Rights. “With slew of measures putting back the economy on track, the Government’s actions in the past 18 months have led to bringing down inflation while at the same time leading to higher GDP growth and foreign investment. Reform is not an end in itself. Reform for me is just a way station on the long journey to the destination. The destination is the transformation of India,” he said.
“With this round of reforms, we are among the most open economies in the world.”