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Our Bureau

Kolkata , Sept. 17

THE Union Government is in the final stages of negotiation with the Myanmar Government for the Kalandan river multi-modal transport project, which will enable all the States of the North-East to trade with ASEAN nations via the sea route.

Participating in an interactive session here on "Look East policy of the Government of India", organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce, Mr S.N. Menon, Commerce Secretary, said the project will also provide substantial economic benefits to the people of western Myanmar.

He said: "We are also exploring the possibility of opening up more border trade points with Myanmar as well as upgrading the old Stilwell Road in order to benefit the people of Myanmar and India living in comparatively remote areas".

The eventual vision of the ASEAN-India partnership, according to Mr Menon, is to promote Asian economic integration as a new engine of growth along with other East Asian countries.

Capturing the vision of an integrated Asian market in the not too distant future, he said, "we seek to take the existing India-ASEAN relationship to a higher level, where we envision an Asian Economic Community encompassing ASEAN, China, Japan, Korea and India, which would roughly be the size of the European Union in terms of income, and bigger than NAFTA in terms of trade".

He felt it would account for half the world's population and hold foreign exchange reserves exceeding those of the EU and Nafta put together. "This is an idea whose time is fast approaching and we must be prepared for it collectively."

Mr Menon said in preparing for this goal, there was much that had been undertaken.

"We have embarked on projects to inter-connect existing roads and rail links, striving to increase flight services and destinations, provide multi-modal transportation linkages and to provide optical-fibre supported communications."

Later, he told newspersons on the sidelines of the session that joint study groups had been set up under the Government to explore scope for a Free Trade Agreement with South Korea and Japan.

While the study Group on Korea was expected to submit its report by end October or early November, the one on Japan, being coordinated by the Department of Economic Affairs was expected to take a little longer.

He said a study group was looking at India-EU trade relations. He said the Japanese were now showing renewed interest in investments in India in the infrastructure sector, with the proposed freight dedicated rail corridor project between New Delhi and Kolkata being a case in point.

Indian economy, in his opinion, can absorb up to $150 billion of foreign investment in the infrastructure sector over the next 10 years — airports and railways will need $55 billion, power some $75 billion and the telecom sector $25 billion.

Mr Menon said the growth in India's trade was the fastest with South-East Asia, compared to any other region between 1993-04 and 2004-05, when exports grew from about $1.9 billion in 1993-94 to over $7.9 billion in 2004-05.

Bilateral trade with ASEAN has gone up from $3.9 billion in 1993-94 to $16.8 billion in 2004-05.

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