As business houses raised the issue of connectivity between India and several ASEAN countries and non-tariff barrier in Free Trade Agreement in the service sector at the ASEAN-India Dialogue VII forum, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj stressed that enhancing connectivity between India and ASEAN in all its aspects — physical, institutional and people-to-people, was a key strategic priority for the Government.
While addressing the annual Delhi Dialogue on ASEAN-India partnership, Swaraj also identified maritime cooperation between India and ASEAN as a major area and hoped a maritime transport pact could be firmed up by year-end. "Our North-Eastern region is our land-bridge to the ASEAN. We also have maritime boundaries with several ASEAN countries, and this is particularly important from a trade perspective. We have started negotiations on an ASEAN-India Maritime Transport Cooperation Agreement, and hope that it will be finalised by the end of the year," Swaraj said.
She elaborated progress made by India in implementing the Trilateral Highway project which proposes to provide seamless connectivity from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. "We have also started negotiations on an India-Myanmar-Thailand Transit Transport Agreement to address soft connectivity issues," she said. The minister mentioned progress on the Kaladan Multimodal Transport Project which will provide a road and riverine link between Myanmar and Mizoram as well as connect Indian ports to Sittwe port in Myanmar.
"Our experiment with a dedicated fortnightly freighter service with Myanmar has proven to be a commercial success. We plan to commission a study soon to see if this experiment can be replicated, both for cargo and passenger services, with other Southeast Asian countries. We are also looking to expand air connectivity, particularly between our North East and Southeast Asia. We are simultaneously endeavouring to see how we can transform the corridors of connectivity into corridors of economic cooperation" Swaraj said.
On increasing investment and trade co-operation among ASEAN countries, Swaraj invited countries to take advantage of its Make-in-India initiative and invest in railways, ports, highways and smart cities besides forging closer ties in combating terrorism and other transnational crimes. Senior ministers from a number of ASEAN countries are attending the two-day conference. ASEAN is India's fourth largest trading partner and the annual trade between the two sides stood at over $76 billion in 2013.