Vice President asserts that India-ASEAN relationship forms central pillar of India’s ACT-EAST policy

Addressing the 19th ASEAN-India Summit on Saturday, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar stated that India-ASEAN relationship forms the central pillar of India’s ACT-EAST policy. He noted that deep cultural, economic and civilizational ties have existed between India and South East Asia from time immemorial. This connect has provided a foundation to build a strong relationship in the modern times from a central partnership in 1992 to a comprehensive strategic partner in 2022.

Hailing 30 years of ASEAN-INDIA friendship, Vice President said that the 3 decades have seen a multifaceted and multidimensional growth in engagements from connectivity to climate change, security to space, education to ecology and technology to trade which shows the commitment towards a brighter future.

Vice President emphasized that India places great value on ASEAN as an important pillar of regional, multilateral and global order. He said India supports the centrality of ASEAN in the evolving architecture in Indo-Pacific, while noting that India and ASEAN share a common vision in ensuring peace, prosperity and stability in the region.

Vice President said that to navigate through the uncertain geo-political environment in future, there is a need to expand India-ASEAN cooperation while deepening mutual strategic trust. For this the comprehensive strategic partnership would show the path, he added.