Guwahati, Sept 15: Vice-president Hamid Ansari on Monday
asked the north eastern states to adopt innovative and
concerted approaches in economic and trade arrangements to
make the Look East Policy a reality.
This, he said, would not only ensure closer integration
with the national economy but also with economies of the
neighbouring countries of the region as well.
"The Look East Policy is not just a foreign policy
initiative. It is an amalgam of a strategic shift in our
global perspective, an aspect of our economic reform process
focused on enlargement of our external economic engagement
accompanied by renewal of civilisation linkages with our
neighbours in south east and East Asia," Ansari said while
inaugurating the fourth North East Business Summit in Guwahati.
There is a very important external dimension to economic
development and growth of business and entrepreneurship in the
north eastern region, he said.
The Look East Policy is also complemented with a "Look
Around Policy" of closer economic and political partnership
with neighbouring countries in the SAARC region, he added.
"The north east is at the focus of all these multifaceted
initiatives. South east begins where north east India ends.
Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan are central to ensuring
sustainable economic development through close cooperation and
partnership", Ansari added.
The North Eastern Region Vision 2020 document, released
by the Prime Minister in July this year, had noted that the
region should play "the arrow-head role....in the vanguard of
the country's Look East policy".
The Vice-president pointed out that the institutional
structures for increasing economic cooperation and trade were
being put in place like the commitment of all SAARC countries
to implement SAFTA in letter and spirit.
The institutional structures which were being put in
place must be harnessed and "only then will there be real and
tangible dividends for the people of the region", he said.
The Indo-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement negotiations have
been completed and "lies at the core of our engagement with
ASEAN," he said.
Besides ASEAN, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi
Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation and the Mekong
Ganga Cooperation bring together Cambodia, India, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam and finally the East Asia summit
provides a forum to take forward the vision of an Asian
economic community.
"All these efforts must be seen within the context of the
objectives of the vision statement of an imaginative leap in
the foreign policy, defence policy and internal security... to
end the geo-political isolation of the north east and launch
it on the growth path," Ansari said.
Bureau Report
