In a keynote address at the Business Session of Delhi Dialogue VIII here today, external affairs secretary (East), Anil Wadhwa said that under an MoU signed in 2012, nine border haats in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram will be set up. India has now two Land Customs Stations (LCS) at Tamu-Moreh in Manipur and Rhi-Zowkhathar in Mizoram, and the LCS at Moreh is being upgraded into an Integrated Check Post, he said.

Wadhwa said efforts at promoting cross border trade at the micro level requires support at the macro level through physical connectivity.

“We have announced a line of credit of US$1 billion to promote projects that support physical and digital connectivity between India and Asean. Along with the construction of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Project, we are also at the final stages of a Motor Vehicles Agreement between India, Myanmar and Thailand which will address soft connectivity issues,” he said.

Recognising the importance of science and technology, India had enhanced the Asean-India Science and Technology Fund from $1 million to $5 million from this year, which will go towards setting up of an Asean-India Innovation Platform to facilitate commercialisation of low cost technologies and collaborative R&D projects.

Wadhwa said there was need to collaborate in development of infrastructure and sustainable energy by promoting private sector cooperation in the development and utilisation of renewable and alternative energy sources along with liberalisation of power trade among Asean members and India. “I hope the session will come up with the broad contours of an Asean-India ecosystem to facilitate the convergence of technology, integration across diverse fields, distributed architecture and people willing to back an idea,” he said, adding that India is currently undergoing economic and social transformation on a scale and a speed that is unmatched in history.

The Indian economy is the fastest growing major economy with a growth rate of 7.3 per cent in 2014-15, Wadhwa noted. “We have undertaken a number of steps to improve the business climate which have resulted in FDI inflows going up by 40 per cent,” he said. He added that Asean is forging ahead as a community by deepening its economic integration.

At the last Asean-India Summit in November 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called India andAsean “two bright spots of optimism” amidst ongoing global economic uncertainties.

In the past year, a significant achievement has been the completion of the Asean-India Free Trade Area with the implementation of the Asean-India Agreements on Trade in Services and Investment on July 1, 2015.