HANOI — Maritime cooperation is key for India and Southeast Asian nations to bolster their strategic partnership as part of a larger Act East policy.
That was the message delivered at the 10th annual Delhi Dialogue held in New Delhi recently with a focus on strengthening the maritime ties between India and the emerging Association of Southeast Asian Nations trade bloc.
The two-day conference attracted around 200 participants including ministers and senior officials from India and Asean countries as well as international and regional scholars.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vu Dung attended the event.
As well as maritime issues, other topics discussed include culture, social economic issues.
Preeti Saran of the India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Delhi and the bloc were traditional maritime neighbors who were connected by the Indian and the Pacific oceans.
India-Asean cooperation in the maritime domain should be “sustainable”, she added. It meant guaranteeing freedom of navigation and a rule-based system on the sea, which would serve as a “model example for the international community”.
India-Asean trade currently stands at about US$80 billion, most through sea routes. Meanwhile, approximately 40 percent of India’s global trade passes through the South China Sea.
A second session was also held on Blue Economy, the sustainable use of ocean resources, in which officials and experts looked into ways to forge sustainable maritime co-operation between Delhi and Asean.
Also on the agenda was the Act East policy, which improves relationships and has superseded the Look East policy of 1992, which had been dormant until four years ago.
“Act East is not just a progression but a leap further from Look East,” Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Vijay Singh said at the dialogue.
“It is wider in scope geographically with Asean at the core of it. It also goes beyond economic co-operation for even social and cultural co-operations. It is also action robust,” he said.
The region’s geographic location and its historic and cultural links with Southeast Asia through thousands of years of migration made it the ideal candidate to forge and pioneer a close relationship with Asean.
India naturally saw the northeast central to its Act East policy, and decided to build its plan around the region.
India Foundation chairman Ram Madhav said: “The northeast region is not only the gateway to Asean but also a region with great opportunities and values to both India and Asean.”
Several challenges remained with connectivity the number one issue, said the northeast state Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Kongkal Sangma.
Sangma believed that air connectivity was crucial to establish the people-to-people exchange between the region and Asean countries.
Delhi Dialogue is an annual event to discuss politico-security, economic and socio-cultural engagement between India and Asean.