PM seeks hiking bilateral trade with ASEAN

Terming India's ties with the ASEAN as a 'pillar' of its 'Look East' policy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposes a bilateral trade target of $50 billion by 2010.

Terming India's ties with the ASEAN as a 'pillar' of its 'Look East' policy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday proposed a bilateral trade target of $50 billion by 2010 and sought boosting of cooperation with the key ten-member grouping in technology, health care, climate change and tourism.

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Singh announced an initial corpus of $1 million for setting up an India-ASEAN Science and Technology Fund and measures for capacity building and empowerment of youth.

Seeking the setting up of an India-Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Network on climate change, the Prime Minister proposed establishment of an India-ASEAN Green Fund with an initial contribution of $5 million for pilot projects to promote adaptation and mitigation technologies.

Addressing the 6th India-ASEAN Summit in Singapore, Singh wanted an agreement with the member states to work towards a target of one million tourist arrivals from ASEAN to India by 2010.

Noting that the target of bilateral trade of $30 billion for 2007 has already been achieved, he said "given the results so far, I propose that we set up a bilateral trade target of $50 billion by the year 2010".