The ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit is taking place on Thursday, January 25. An evening before, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had separate bilateral meetings with leaders of three ASEAN nations: Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines.
The meetings took place on Wednesday and PIB Delhi has issued a statement about the same. This year, all the leaders of the ASEAN nations have been invited to be Chief Guests at India's Republic Day celebrations on January 26.
PM Modi welcomed the dignitaries and also thanked them for accepting to be a part of the country's Republic Day event. Here is what else followed the leaders' arrival.
Meeting with Myanmar
PM Modi met with Myanmar's State Councellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to discuss several matters of common interest. They considered how to strengthen their bilateral relations and moved on to discuss follow ups of key decisions that were finalized when Modi visited Myanmar in September 2017.
Meeting with Vietnam
The second bilateral meeting was between India and Vietnam, where PM Modi met with Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the Prime Minister of Vietnam. They discussed the growth of bilateral relations within the framework of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The growth took place in the fields of Maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, along with defence, trade, investment, oil and gas.
Two agreements have been signed between the countries in the field of Information and Broadcasting and tracking and data reception station and data processing facility on Vietnam. The leaders expressed hope that this cooperation will further boost India-Vietnam relations.
Apart from this, the operationalization of the Line of Credit of US $100 million was discussed, under which L & T has been awarded contract for manufacture of Offshore Patrol Vessels. They also talked about opening the other Line of Credit of US $500 soon.
Meeting with the Philippines
Philippines President Duterte met with Indian PM Modi to review the progress of their bilateral relations, wherein they decided to give further boost to their global and regional situation which was discussed in their meeting in Manila in November 2017.
The countries agreed to boost cooperation in the field of infrastructure development as well. Also, they discussed about the several areas of cooperation between the private sectors of India and Philippines.
Lastly, they witnessed the exchange of an MOU between Invest India and Board of Investments of the Philippines.
What was common in all three meetings was the emphasis on building strong ASEAN-India relations for peace, security and proper socio-economic development in the Indo-Pacific region.
