PM Narendra Modi to participate in 16th India-ASEAN summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend 16th ASEAN-India Summit, 14th East Asia Summit and third summit meeting of Regional Comprehensive Ecomic Partnership (RCEP) which is negotiating tre deal in Bangkok in Thailand. PM Modi arrived on Saturday on a three-day visit in midst of renewed diplomatic efforts to convince India to support signing of a mega tre deal involving 16 Asia-Pacific nations to facilitate creation of biggest free-tre region in world. Though annual ASEAN and East Asia summits are key platforms to devise common strategy in dealing with geo-strategic and ecomic issues facing region, single-point focus this time has been on long-negotiated RCEP tre deal.

Below is PM Modi's schedule for Day 2 of Thailand visit

Prime Minister’s Programme in Bangkok For Sunday, 03 vember 2019

0915-1000 hrs: itya Birla Group Golden Jubilee Celebrations 
 
1115 –1215 hrs: 16th India- ASEAN Summit

1225-1255 hrs: Meeting with PM General Prayut Chan-O-Chan of Thailand

1305-1335 hrs: Meeting with President Joko Widodo Of Indonesia
 
1810-1830 hrs: Meeting with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar

1840-2100 hrs: Gala Dinner

All times local, approximately

PM Modi on RCEP talks

Multiple diplomatic sources confirmed to PTI that except India, all 15 RCEP countries were on board in finalizing deal when leers of grouping hold a summit meeting on Monday. At RCEP Summit, we will take stock of progress in RCEP negotiations. We will consider all issues including wher India's concerns and interests in tre in goods, services, and investments are being fully accommodated, during this summit, Modi said in a statement in New Delhi ahe of his visit here.

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India-ASEAN summit in Thailand

On India-ASEAN summit, Modi said focus will be on deepening ecomic partnerships and expanding maritime cooperation besides enhancing ASEAN-led mechanisms. I will be reviewing with ASEAN partners our cooperative activities, and examining plans for strengning ASEAN and ASEAN-led mechanisms, enhancing connectivity (sea, land, air, digital and people-to-people), deepening ecomic partnerships, and expanding maritime cooperation, he said. annual ASEAN summit, a grouping of 10 influential countries, is taking place amid China's aggressive behaviour in disputed South China Sea as well as in Indo-Pacific region. powerful grouping will have separate summits with its dialogue partners like India, US, Japan, Russia and China.

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ASEAN region

ASEAN region along with India toger comprises combined population of 1.85 billion people, which is one-fourth of global population and ir combined GDP has been estimated at over USD 3.8 trillion. Investment from ASEAN to Indian has been over USD 70 billion in last 17 years accounting for more than 17 per cent of India's total FDI.  Besides attending India-ASEAN and RCEP summits, prime minister will also attend annual East Asia summit which is expected to review evolving security scenario in region besides deliberating on ways to deal with threat of terrorism and ricalization.

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ASEAN Summit

While ASEAN summit is likely to focus more on tre and investment related issues, leers at East Asia Summit are expected to delve deep into issues relating to maritime security, terrorism, n-proliferation and migration. East Asia Summit (EAS) is today leing element in regional cooperative architecture, as a singular, Leers-led structure that is centered around ASEAN, and includes as members major countries in region or with important interests in it. We will be reviewing significant regional and global issues on nda of EAS, and examining state of our current programmes and projects, PM said. I will also focus on our Indo-Pacific strategy, on which I am happy to te strong convergences with ASEAN partners and ors at EAS, he said. Apart from 10 ASEAN Member states, East Asia Summit includes India, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Russia. 

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(With PTI inputs)