India-Asean relations one of the most important in 21st century, says Indian expert
17 Mar 2023 12:32pm
Apurv Kumar Mishra, Consultant of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Indian Government, said the deepening of engagement between the two sides over the last seven to eight years is a reflection of the importance of the region to global politics. - Bernama pic
Apurv Kumar Mishra, Consultant of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Indian Government, said the deepening of engagement between the two sides over the last seven to eight years is a reflection of the importance of the region to global politics.
"If we work closely together, if we invest in each other's progress, we can unlock a lot of prosperity not just for our people, but for the entire region," he told Bernama when met at the 4th Asean-India Youth Summit in Hyderabad, recently.
Noting that the inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific can only be achieved if ASEAN Centrality is appreciated by all stakeholders in the region, Apurv Kumar said India's focus is ensuring that Asean Centrality will be the bedrock of the region's strategy.
"This is just the first chapter of a wonderful new book that is waiting to be written in the 21st century about the relationship between India and Asean," he said.
Apurv Kumar emphasised that both sides have long and close cultural and historical linkages which could be leveraged in deepening cooperation and people-to-people interactions.
"All that we need to do is to remind our young generation about this ancient friendship between India and Asean. Once we do that, I think they'll have enough energy, enough innovation, enough potential to find out deeper ways to cooperate with each other," he said.
On technological cooperation, Apurv Kumar said India is willing to share expertise, including in digital public goods, Internet of Things (IoT), military technology and pharmaceutical as there is a lot of interest among Southeast Asian countries to learn from India's record in developing its technological capabilities.
As the biggest exporter of information technology (IT) services in the world, he said India can play a big role in helping Asean and the entire Indo-Pacific region to nurture their own expertise and in-house talent in new technologies.
"I was reading somewhere that we export as much in IT services as Saudi Arabia exports of oil, that is how important IT services are to India and we've developed our capacity to be an IT hub for the entire world because of the talent that we have," said Apurv Kumar. -Bernama
