India-ASEAN Summit postponed due to unrest in Thailand

NEW DELHI: India-ASEAN Summit scheduled for December 17 has been postponed, as Thailand, which is in the throes of a political turmoil, today said it cannot host the meeting of the 10-nation trading bloc that was to sign a free trade pact with New Delhi.

"Our Ambassador (in Bangkok) informed us this morning about the postponement of the summit," a Commerce Ministry official told PTI here. An ambitious agreement aimed at opening the 1.5 billion-people market was to be inked at the summit in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Anti-government protests have intensified in Thailand and protesters forced closure of the two airports in Bangkok and postponement of the summit till March. While the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was scheduled for December 12-17, the India-ASEAN meeting was fixed for the last day.

Originally, the meeting was to take place in Bangkok but was later shifted to the northern city of Chiang Mai.
India had completed long negotiations with ASEAN for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in August this year.

The agreement, expected to come into effect from January 2009 was aimed at breaking duty barriers for the fast-growing USD 39-billion India-ASEAN trade.

While the trade pact was to be limited to merchandise goods at the initial stage, it would have given way to lifting of restrictions on services, an area of great interest to India. Negotiations on extending the agreement to services were to begin immediately after signing of CECA.