Singh calls for concerted response to terrorism, extremism

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the growing threats from non-traditional sources of terrorism, such as piracy, transnational groups and extremist ideologies, would increasingly require a concerted and cooperative response by all countries.

Addressing the 4th East Asia Summit (EAS) in its retreat session in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin, Dr Singh said the world would also have to pay greater attention to issues of social exclusion and regional imbalances in development.

"The fight against pandemics and collaboration in disaster management are other areas which will need our attention," he said.

Dr Singh also said that climate change was a major challenge facing the world, but it was particularly so for the developing and fast-growing economies in Asia.

He said the EAS process should come up with a workable model of sustainable development, with financing and technology transfers as its key elements.

"The challenge before us is to find a global mechanism which, while safeguarding the incentives for innovation and development of environment friendly technologies in the private sector, also simultaneously ensures the availability of such technology to developing countries at an affordable cost," he said.

The Prime Minister noted that the Summit was being held against the backdrop of the global economic and financial slowdown. He said the G-20 leaders had met thrice and the coordinated response to address the crisis that had emerged from the G-20 had had some effect.

However, he felt it was still too early to say whether the world was completely out of trouble. He said he supported Australian's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's suggestion for a meeting of EAS Finance Ministers to examine sources of growth in the region.

Dr Singh said the launching of the EAS in 2005 in Kuala Lumpur was an act of foresight and an act of faith in the collective potential of the 16 member-countries.

The EAS comprises the 10 ASEAN countries and Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan and South Korea.

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Phillipines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Dr Singh said that today the world's eyes were on Asia as the region which could lead the global economic revival from the front.

"The Asian tigers captured the world’s attention a few decades ago. Today, six of the twenty members of the G-20 belong to the East Asia Summit," he said.

He said there were lessons to be learnt from the global economic crisis, including the need to ensure coordination in growth policies and to keep the real economy strong and sound. He said he agreed with Japan that greater emphasis had to be laid on growth of domestic demand.

He said it was also important to keep the flows of trade, technology and investment open, orderly and predictable.

The Prime Minister said the evolution of the EAS process should conform to its first declaration issued in Kuala Lumpur which called for the grouping to be an open, inclusive, transparent and outward looking forum.

"We need to move forward in this direction, and exhibit the requisite political will. Economic integration among us could generate billions of dollars of additional output," he said.

The Prime Minister said the vision of Asian economic integration by coalescing the Free Trade Agreements among member Asian countries into an Asian Regional Trade Agreement was a pivotal step towards the integration of Asia into a common unit.

This could lead to the creation of a broader Asian Economic Community, he said, stressing that the focus should be on generation of stronger domestic demand in Asian economies through investment in infrastructure, creation and strengthening of the social welfare net, skill development of the workforce and environmentally sustainable and inclusive growth.

He said India welcomed the recommendations of the Phase II Report on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia with regard to the three pillars of economic cooperation, facilitation and liberalisation. An early realisation of its roadmap for economic and financial integration would be the right step forward for our grouping, he said.

Dr Singh pointed out that India was playing its part in this process. It had signed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with Singapore and Korea and recently a Trade in Good Agreements with the ASEAN. It was in discussions with Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia and other countries to conclude agreements of a similar nature, he said.

He said the proposals generated by the Economic Research Institute of ASEAN and East Asia [ERIA] to develop a blueprint for financial and economic integration of the EAS region, especially in the area of infrastructure development and connectivity, were promising, and deserved encouragement. India would contribute $ 1 million over a period of ten years for enlarging the activities of ERIA, he said.

He also expressed happiness over the statement adopted by the Summit on the establishment of the Nalanda University in Bihar in India.

"This has been the product of many months of hard work put in by the Nalanda Mentor Group, and will be a shining example of cooperative action in the field of education," he added.

NNN