Narendra Modi has been in the office for just over 6 months. But in this short period of time, he has shown the intention to develop friendly relations and enhance economic cooperation with as many countries as possible. On the first leg of his busy 10 day visit to Myanmar, Australia, and Fiji, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the ASEAN summit that is being held at Myanmar Convention Centre.
Speaking at the round table conference, PM Modi said that LOOK East has been the policy of his government and he has moved ahead with intensity and momentum to engage with the neighbors of India in the East. He said that his government attaches great importance to the countries in this region. He said that he believes that Indian and ASEAN countries can significantly increase trade relations and grow economically by boosting their ties.
ASEAN is a block of 10 nations with small and medium sized economies. The countries in this block include Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. India has a trade of $76 billion with ASEAN countries at present which is only 3% of the total ASEAN business. India and ASEAM pledged to increase this trade to $100 billion in the year 2015. In addition to taking part in the ASDEAN summit, Modi took opportunity to engage with various premiers in a bilateral manner and stressed the need with them to boost economic cooperation with India. His ‘Make in India’ emphasis was there in each of these meetings and not surprisingly it found many takers.
Singapore Premier, during his deliberations with PM Modi, told him that there was a lot of goodwill for the new government of India in Singapore and he was looking forward to increased trade relations with India. In a similar tone, Chan-o-cha, the Thai Premier, did not mince words when he said that he was impressed with Modi’s Make in India campaign and feels that this emphasis could be learnt and applied in his own country to give impetus to the economy. Modi took up this issue once again during his talks with Malaysian Premier Najib Razak.
Modi is an avid Twitter user and his official handle was used to great effect to flash Tweets about his interactions with the leaders of ASEAN nations. In one of his Tweets, Modi said, ‘I am giving a lot of emphasis to Make in India and want to invite Malaysian companies to come to India. There are lots of opportunities.’
Modi said that there is great potential in India and ASEAN trade relations and trade with ASEAN could be increased manifold in the coming few years. He emphasized that there are no irritants between India and ASEAN and they could make the most of increased bilateral trade relations. Boosting ties with ASEAN would increase peace and stability in the region.
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About Sanjay Tandon
Sanjay Tandon is a graduate engineer from IIT Varanasi. He has been writing as a freelancer for many years. He loves to write on various niches. He is passionate about politics and economy and spends his free time watching news channels. He is also an expert on relationships.
