The Hindu Business Line : Trans-Asian motoring — The rally route to brisker trade

A trans-Asian motor car rally, planned for later this year, is intended to strengthen road links between India and its Asian neighbours, and lead to increased access to Asian markets.

TRADE promotion between India and the 10-member Association of the South East Asian Nations (Asean) is all set to take a different route — a motor car rally being planned for November this year.

A joint Indo-Asean project, the rally will be jointly organised, among others, by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

While the exact dates and the final route of the motor-car rally are being finalised, the rally — open to all Asean countries and expected to attract about a 100 participants — is expected to start from Imphal and finish in Bangkok, Thailand.

Heads of Asean countries are also likely to give a ceremonial flag off to the rally in Vientiane, Laos when they meet there for the third Asean India summit meeting in November this year. The Asean grouping includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The proposed rally comes close on the heels of the former Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee indicating at the Indo-Asean summit in Bali late last year that such a car rally could draw attention to the geographical proximity of the countries in the region.

At the same Summit Mr Vajpayee had also announced that India would follow an `open-skies policy' for the 10 members of the Asean.

Addressing the India-Asean Summit, Mr Vajpayee had said the designated airlines of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam would be allowed to operate daily flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai without having to enter into bilateral air-services talks with India.

Besides, Mr Vajpayee had also offered unlimited number of flights to these airlines to another 18 tourist destinations, including such places as Goa and Bhubaneswar.

Meanwhile, for the car rally a roadmap has already been worked out for the journey which will cover 5,000 km passing through Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. A route survey for the rally has been completed by a joint team of 12 officials from various agencies, including the Bengal Motor Sports Club and CII.

Three SUVs were used for the survey including a Mahindra Scorpio, a Tata Safari and a Toyota Qualis.

The route survey started from Imphal in the North-East, and passed through Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before ending in Thailand.

Besides being in tune with India's Look-East Policy, the motor-car rally has also been planned for establishing road linkages between India and the other Asean countries.

It is also intended to provide significant impetus to India's policy of engagement with Asean countries. The rally is also expected to draw commercial interest in infrastructure along the route that it will follow and could also promote tourism and development in the region.

It is believed that building such linkages between India and the Asean countries will help in giving a boost to such existing synergies as lower transport costs and shorter delivery schedules for Indian exporters and growing Indian investment in the region.

India and the ten-member Asean countries are aiming to increase trade from the current level of $12.5 billion to $30 billion in the next three years. In terms of investments, the level of flows between India and the rest of the Asean region has the potential to grow to over $1 billion by 2007.

It is believed that the motor-car rally will also help in the promotion of business in information technology, biotechnology and tourism.

Further, 90 per cent of India's trade within the Asean region is focussed on five countries — Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia.

The rally could also open the doors for the other five countries in the region — Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia — to be able to access the Indian market and also to provide some Indian goods and services in their own countries.

However, since this is the first year of the rally it has been planned more as a `parade', with advance pilots and marshals regulating the cars than as a professional competition.