Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Brunei from October 9-10, to attend the ASEAN-Indian Summit.
During this visit, he is expected to sign the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA)in services and investments – with the services sector contributing majorly to growth, in India. This is significant, given India’s Look East Policy.
Last December, during the commemorative summit to mark two decades of the India-ASEAN relations, the two sides entered a strategic partnership.
India is also part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) dialogue, with the ASEAN nations, to create a giant free trade area encompassing the major Asian economies by 2015.
The proposed RCEP trade area, if it materialises, will be the largest in terms of population, and could be the largest trade bloc in the world; and it would also bring Japan, China and India – three of Asia’s largest economies – within one agreement.
Together, India and ASEAN constitute a community of 1.8 billion people, representing one-fourth of humanity, with a combined GDP of $3.8 trillion. Total trade between India and ASEAN reached up to $80 billion, surpassing the original target of $70 billion in 2011-12. If the FTA in services and investment is signed, two-way trade is expected to touch the $100 billion mark by 2015.
The ASEAN is India’s fourth-largest trading partner after the EU, the U.S. and China, and together, India and the ASEAN constitute a community of 1.8 billion people, and have a combined GDP of $3.8 trillion.