PM Modi arrives in Bangkok on three-day visit amid focus on RCEP negotiations

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Saturday on a three-day visit in the midst of renewed diplomatic efforts to convince India to support signing of a mega trade deal involving 16 Asia-Pacific nations to facilitate creation of the biggest free-trade region in the world.

The prime minister will attend 16th ASEAN-India Summit, the 14th East Asia Summit and the third summit meeting of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which is negotiating the trade deal.

Though the annual ASEAN and East Asia summits are key platforms to devise common strategy in dealing with geo-strategic and economic issues facing the region, the single-point focus this time has been on the long-negotiated RCEP trade deal.

Multiple diplomatic sources confirmed to PTI that except India, all 15 RCEP countries were on board in finalizing the deal when leaders of the grouping hold a summit meeting on Monday.

“At the RCEP Summit, we will take stock of the progress in RCEP negotiations. We will consider all issues including whether India's concerns and interests in trade in goods, services, and investments are being fully accommodated, during this summit,” Modi said in a statement in New Delhi ahead of his visit here.

On India-ASEAN summit, Modi said the focus will be on deepening  economic partnerships, and expanding maritime cooperation besides enhancing ASEAN-led mechanisms.

“I will be reviewing with ASEAN partners our cooperative activities, and examining plans for strengthening ASEAN and ASEAN-led mechanisms, enhancing connectivity (sea, land, air, digital and people-to-people), deepening economic partnerships, and expanding maritime cooperation,” he said.

The annual ASEAN summit, a grouping of 10 influential countries, is taking place amid China's aggressive behaviour in the disputed South China Sea as well as in the Indo-Pacific region. The powerful grouping will have separate summits with its dialogue partners like India, the US, Japan, Russia and China.

The ASEAN region along with India together comprises combined population of 1.85 billion people, which is one fourth of the global population and their combined GDP has been estimated at over USD 3.8 trillion. Investment from ASEAN to Indian has been over USD 70 billion in the last 17 years accounting for more than 17 per cent of India's total FDI.

Besides attending the India-ASEAN and RCEP summits, the prime minister will also attend the annual East Asia summit which is expected to review the evolving security scenario in the region besides deliberating on ways to deal with threat of terrorism and radicalization.

While ASEAN summit is likely to focus more on trade and investment related issues, leaders at the East Asia Summit are expected to delve deep into issues relating to maritime security, terrorism, non-proliferation and migration.

“The East Asia Summit (EAS) is today the leading element in the regional cooperative architecture, as a singular, Leaders-led structure that is centered around ASEAN, and includes as members major countries in the region or with important interests in it. We will be reviewing significant regional and global issues on the Agenda of the EAS, and examining the state of our current programmes and projects,” the PM said.

“I will also focus on our Indo-Pacific strategy, on which I am happy to note strong convergences with ASEAN partners and others at the EAS,” he said.

Apart from the 10 ASEAN Member states, East Asia Summit includes India, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Russia.