ASEAN leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Oct.30 attended the 8 th ASEAN-India Summit in Hanoi, which was chaired by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The leaders of ASEAN and India noted with satisfaction the fruitful developments in ASEAN-India Dialogue relation, with positive outcomes in various aspects, particularly on economic-trade, science and technology, environment, health, tourism and people-to-people exchange.

ASEAN welcomed the “Look East” policy of India, in which the ASEAN-India relation is considered as a main pillar and the crucial foundation for cooperation and linkage in the Asian region.
ASEAN leaders noted with appreciation India’s continued support for ASEAN in realising the goals of enhancing regional integration and narrowing development gap through the implementation of important programs and plans, especially the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community, the Master Plan of ASEAN Connectivity and the Initiative of ASEAN Integration (IAI).

ASEAN also looks forwards to India’s continued support for ASEAN’s centrality in an evolving regional architecture, particularly in ASEAN-led fora.

On future direction, the two sides agreed to focus efforts and resources to effectively implement cooperation agreements, especially the ASEAN-India Plan of Action (POA) (2010-2015), focusing on prioritised areas such as economic-trade, science and technology, information technology, biology, food, energy, health, pharmaceuticals, education and human resources development.

Along with the implementation of ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement, the two sides agreed to accelerate negotiation for the next agreements of investment and service.

India expressed continued support and assistance to ASEAN in its Community building and narrowing development gap, enhancing capacity for addressing global challenges, cooperation in the development of the Mekong sub-region, operations of the ASEAN-India Entrepreneur Development Centres and English Language Training Centres in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

ASEAN leaders and India reaffirmed their commitment on uplifting the ASEAN-India dialogue relation to a new height, effectively implementing the agreed plans. They also agreed to hold the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in 2012 to mark the 20 th anniversary of the ASEAN-India Dialogue Partnership and establish the ASEAN- India Eminent Persons Group (EPG) by 2012 to research and make detailed proposals to further the partnership.

The same day, Foreign Ministers of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and the US Secretary of State attended a working session in Hanoi to promote cooperation between the Mekong sub-region and the US.

The ministers discussed cooperation in the fields of environment, health, education, infrastructure development as well as coordination and information exchange mechanism.

They also shared their views on challenges to the sub-region in terms of environment and climate change./.