External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to visit Laos this week

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will travel to Lao PDR on Thursday on a three-day visit to review ASEAN-India cooperation in a range of areas including trade and investment.

Lao PDR is the current chair of 10-nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) grouping.

The ASEAN-India summit is slated to be held in Laos Capital Vientiane in October and Prime Minister Narendra Modi may travel to the Southeast Asian country to attend it.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Vientiane from July 25 to 27 to participate in the foreign ministers' meetings under the ASEAN framework in the format of ASEAN-India, East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, an official readout said.

"The visit underlines India's deep engagement with and the importance India attaches to the ASEAN-centred regional architecture, our strong commitment to ASEAN unity, ASEAN centrality, the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and taking forward the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in the readout.

"It is of particular significance that this year marks a decade of India's Act East Policy which was announced by the Prime Minister at the 9th East Asia Summit in 2014," it said.

Jaishankar is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Lao PDR and some other countries on the margins of the ASEAN-related meetings.

The ASEAN-India dialogue relations started with the establishment of a sectoral partnership in 1992. This graduated to full dialogue partnership in December 1995 and summit level partnership in 2002.

The ties were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2012.

The 10 member countries of ASEAN are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.

The ties between India and ASEAN have been on a significant upswing in the last few years with focus being on boosting cooperation in the areas of trade and investment as well as security and defence.