Bali (Indonesia): Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on October 6 set up two task forces in pharmaceuticals and agriculture and food processing to prepare a strategy document to outline a roadmap for cooperation in these sectors.

The strategy document would be discussed at the next meeting of ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN ABAC) in Myanmar in December, a CII spokesman said.

A CII delegation is in Bali to attend various business conferences of ASEAN coinciding with second India- ASEAN Summit on October 8 to be attended by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The task force on pharmaceuticals would be led by Jose Concepcion from the Philippines and a representative from Vietnam on behalf of ASEAN ABAC. While from India it would be CEO Ranbaxy D S Brar and deputy director general, CII, Dilip Chenoy.

The task force on agriculture and food processing would be led by Dato Syed Amin Aljeffri, MD, MGI- Aljeffri, Malaysia and the co-leader would be Yogi Deveshwar, chairman, ITC, India.

"Based on the success of these two pilots other sectors could be identified, CII and ABAC secretariat would exchange periodic information on the progress of work on these two task forces," the spokesman said.

He said the total import of pharmaceuticals in ASEAN was $ 2.7 billion, of which 80 per cent was not made in ASEAN and only $ 220 million was imported from China or India.

Jamshyd N Godrej, chairman of CII's ASEAN committee said, "As a first step, the task forces would look at means to address implementation issues, doing away with non-tariff barriers and promoting investment."

Lauding the position taken by India at the Cancun WTO meeting, ABAC said for once the developing countries all got together and spoke in one voice, the spokesman said, adding ASEAN business community felt that this partnership should continue.

PTI