Bali: Declaring that India was working on eliminating trade and investment barriers, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on October 7 advocated a trade turnover of $ 30 billion with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) by 2007 and establishment of a Free Trade Area with the 10-member regional grouping within a decade.

Seeking to partner ASEAN in the era of globalisation, he listed six strong points of the Indian economy, including a rich pool of English speaking human resource and the Information Technology (IT) revolution for enhancing India-ASEAN trade and investment.

"India is conscious of the new ASEAN members. We are offering unilateral tariff concessions on items of export interest to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (lesser developed and newer entrants to ASEAN).

"We are also seeking to incorporate an early harvest scheme to provide the incentive for a long-term engagement. If we proceed along this course, we can target a trade turnover of $ 30 billion by 2007 and a Free Trade Area within 10 years," Vajpayee told the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

Observing that India's trade and economic interaction with the ASEAN countries has been growing steadily, but not fast enough, Vajpayee said trade of less than $ 10 billion between the two did not do justice to the combined population of 1.5 billion people, producing a $ trillion-and-a-half worth of goods and services annually.

Recalling his speech at the first India-ASEAN Business Summit a year ago for boosting business, Vajpayee said, "Our trade has since grown by about 25 per cent, but my comments remain valid."

The business summit was also addressed by Chinese and Japanese Prime Ministers Wen Jiabao and Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun.

The powerful ASEAN comprises Indonesia, its current chairman Singapore and the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Vajpayee said in spite of the stalemate at the Cancun WTO Ministerial conference, a rule-based and fair multilateral trading system should remain the goal.

"But while we search for this ideal, regional trading arrangements offer immediate advantages, particularly for geographical contiguous regions. They can provide our domestic industry and agriculture with a valuable learning period, before being exposed to the far greater competition of global free trade," he said.

Observing that non-Asians viewed Asia as the principal market of the future, the Prime Minister said it would emerge as a manufacturing hub and a global provider of services.

"Asian countries should work towards strengthening their mutual synergies, so that they are strategically placed to derive maximum benefit from the emerging opportunities. The India-ASEAN partnership should energise this process to move us closer to our shared goal of making this truly the Asian century," Vajpayee said.

India would be signing a Framework Agreement with ASEAN on October 8, which would be a precursor for a free trade arrangement, an accord for cooperation for combating terrorism and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in South East Asia.

Vajpayee would also be addressing the second India-ASEAN Summit on October 8, the first having been held in Cambodia in 2002.

PTI