Two-way trade between Asean and India is on track to more than double to reach $30 billion by 2007, Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said on Sunday. "India's trade and economic interaction with Asean countries has been growing steadily," Natwar told a business forum held on the sidelines of an Asian summit in Laos. "We have set ourselves a target of 30 billion by 2007 for our trade. Given our growing economic strength and size of our combined population, this is an achievable target."
Natwar said the "timely conclusion" of a proposed free trade agreement in goods would help boost trade even before 2007. Current trade is at $13 billion.
He also pushed for a trade bloc involving Asean, China, Japan, South Korea and India which could "pave the way for an Asian Economic Community by 2020 if not earlier."
The combined population of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members, China, Japan, South Korea and India accounts for nearly half of the world's population.
The bloc has more foreign reserves than the European Union and the North American Free Trade Association combined, Natwar said.
Senior economic officials from India and Asean held a meeting ahead of the Asean summit here, but there was no meeting between their economic ministers, a Lao official said.
Southeast Asian diplomatic sources said both sides had reached broad agreement on an "early harvest" scheme that would cover a selected number of goods to be liberalised earlier under the free trade pact.
But the early harvest programme is unlikely to commence as hoped for by January 1 next year because of disagreements on the classification to adopt for the goods to be liberalised.
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