19th ASEAN-India Summit 2022- Key Outcomes and Way Forward

At the 19th ASEAN-India summit, ASEAN and India adopted a joint statement announcing the elevation of the existing Strategic Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

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ASEAN-India Summit 2022 UPSC Relevance

19^th ASEAN-India Summit 2022: India-ASEAN Summit 2022 is being held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. ASEAN-India Summit is important for UPSC Prelims Exam (International Organizations) and UPSC Mains Exam ( International Relations- India and its association with regional groupings).

ASEAN-India Summit 2022 in News

The Vice President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar led the Indian delegation, including the External Affairs Minister, Dr S. Jaishankar, at the 19th ASEAN-India Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
At ASEAN-India Summit 2022, both parties adopted ASEAN-India Joint Statement, key features the joint statement are listed below.

ASEAN-India Summit 2022 Joint Statement

At the 19^th ASEAN-India summit, ASEAN and India adopted a joint statement announcing the elevation of the existing Strategic Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Both sides reaffirmed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, maritime safety and security, freedom of navigation and overflight in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Joint Statement also reiterated the commitment to enhance India-ASEAN cooperation in various areas such as-
- Maritime activities,
- Counter-terrorism,
- Transnational crimes,
- Cyber security,
- Digital economy,
- Regional connectivity,
- Smart agriculture,
- Environment,
- Science & technology,
- Tourism, among other areas.
The Joint Statement also proposes expediting the review of ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) to make it more user-friendly, simple, and trade-facilitative.

Why ASEAN-India Summit 2022 is Unique/Remarkable?

Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP): the ASEAN-India relationship is now elevated to comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP) level.
- A decade ago, the 2012 Commemorative Summit endorsed the Strategic Partnership (SP) between India and Asean.
- Ten years later, the relationship is now upgraded to the CSP. The Asean signed the CSP with China and Australia last year.
- Asean and India issued a joint statement highlighting what the CSP offers
Vice-president led Delegation: For the first time, the Indian delegation was headed by the vice-president, which was a correct decision.
- The Asean Summits do not need high level political participation. Several high-level political leaders attended it.
- This is because many of them are on an Asia tour to attend: the COP27, Asean Plus Summit, the APEC and G20. One flight, four stops!
Focus on Indo-Pacific: Indo-Pacific has gained the centre stage. Asean has issued the leaders’ declaration on mainstreaming four priority areas of the Asean outlook on the Indo-Pacific within Asean-led mechanisms.
- This is nothing but to clearly recognise Indo-Pacific as a reality moving ahead.
- India’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean and IPEF-membership makes it an essential economic power.

ASEAN-India Relations Way Forward

Implementing FTA: Asean and India must reinforce the trade and investment relations.
- Since the free trade agreement (FTA) in goods came into effect between Asean and India in 2010, the trade between them has almost doubled to reach over $ 87 billion in 2019-20.
- However, it declined to $ 79 billion in 2020-21 due to pandemic-driven slowdown.
- Upgrading the Asean-India FTA (AIFTA) and its effective utilisation may perhaps add the required momentum to the bilateral trade flows while promoting sustainable and inclusive growth for both Asean and India.
Promotion of Market-driven production networks: Another great opportunity to scale up the Asean-India engagements is the development of market-driven production networks.
- The pandemic has disrupted the supply chain networks and the supply of intermediate inputs and final goods across the world has been distrusted disproportionately.
- Current engagement in value chains between Asean and India is not substantial.
- Some of the sectors that hold promise in value chains between Asean and India are electrical equipment, industrial machines, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, power generating machines and telecommunications.
- Asean and India can leverage the emerging scenario and support each other to build new and resilient supply chains.
- However, to explore this opportunity, Asean and India must upgrade the skilling, improve logistics services and strengthen the transportation infrastructure.
Focus on Investments: Investment reform is another challenge for both India and Asean.
- Asean and India should cooperate towards designing appropriate policies, simplifying investment regimes and streamlining investment processes to further strengthen the value chain and investment linkages.
- Business and economic cooperation between India and Asean in areas of mutual interest such as-
  - Financial technology (FinTech), connectivity, start-ups, and innovation, empowerment of youth and women and the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
  - These will be an important driver to move up the Asean-India relations to a higher plateau.
- CSP joint statement has extended space for connectivity. For India, the ‘Connecting the Connectivities’ may play out well if and only if the overall architecture is benign and serve as a basis for regional infrastructure cooperation.
  - We should not forget our Northeast when we talk about connectivity with Asean.
  - Somehow, the CSP joint statement missed the importance of the Northeast.
- Focus on Socio-economic aspects of India-ASEAN Relations: We agree that socio-cultural issues in Asean–India relations assume special significance.
  - The 10 Asean States are mere cultural replications of 29 Indian states and Union Territories.
  - Our cultural approach to Asean must be inclusive and broad-based.

Conclusion

A stronger Asean-India partnership would strengthen multilateralism, which is at the moment facing a great survival challenge.
Moving from SP to CSP, addressing the regional challenges and appropriate solutions together, leaving aside narrow differences, is what we need and what we need to respect.

19th ASEAN-India Economic Ministers’ Meeting 2022