India aspires to be a more effective engine of growth, says EAM Jaishankar

New Delhi: India aspires to be a more effective engine of growth and a part of reliable and resilient supply chains, said External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar on Thursday.

Addressing the inaugural session of the ASEAN-India Business Summit virtually in New Delhi, Dr Jaishankar said, "India’s economic recovery is impelled by reform in various areas including manufacturing, labour, agriculture, education, skills and of course, improvement in the ease of doing business. India is to be a more effective engine of growth and a part of reliable and resilient supply chains."

"International cooperation, especially among businesses, will be very much a key to the better world that we all seek. India and ASEAN can surely work together more closely to this end," he added. He said that India's ties with the ASEAN are rooted in history, geography and culture. "What has energized them in recent years is a growing awareness of the potential they hold for our mutual interests and development," he added.

"As our cooperation grew in the course of the last 25 years, new facets and domains emerged for collaboration. Connectivity and security are among the notables of the later additions. As a result, our Look East policy matured into an Act East one," he pointed out. He also said that the success of the Look East policy is reflected in drawing India more comprehensively into the Indo-Pacific. There is no doubt that the ASEAN is one of the major hubs for India’s global economic engagement.

As it develops, it is natural that we would like to re-visit the level of ambition that we have set for our partnership. That is also influenced by autonomous changes in the region. But what has given this objective a new urgency is the necessity to re-imagine our cooperation in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said further.

Mentioning about Covid pandemic, he said, it has disrupted India's supply chains, impacted manufacturing, affected the trade and veritably ruined many services sectors. These developments have not just altered various dimensions of our day to day business; they have even shaped our way of life. From the prolonged crisis over the last two years, four areas have come into sharp focus for international business cooperation. Jaishankar enlisted the four areas as resilient and reliable supply chains, health security, digital for development and green and sustainable recovery. He also said that those four areas should constitute the core agenda.

Jaishankar underlined that the Covid-19 has brought out many inadequacies in the global health system. Meaningful partnerships, sharing of advanced technologies, collaboration in vaccine and pharmaceutical production, capacity building and transparency in health information are all part of the answers. And in all of this, the role of businesses is critical. Crisis can often be the basis of creativity and our endeavour should be to come out of this stronger, he stated.

Appreciating India's vaccine production, Jaishankar said that India has succeeded in developing the world’s first DNA vaccine for COVID-19, another mRNA vaccine is in its final stages, as well as a nasal vaccine. "Our global collaborations have enabled us to emerge as a major vaccine production centre for the world," he said.

In addition, he said that the world has also seen innovative methods of collaboration, including an initiative agreed upon by the Quad countries. "This could have significant benefits for nations of the Indo-Pacific. Apart from vaccines, Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing stepped up to the challenge by ramping up production for medicines that were in great demand," Jaishankar reiterated.

"The compulsions of the COVID era have made us all much more digital. The strengthening of digital connectivity both with ASEAN and in the larger Indo-Pacific, therefore, acquires even greater importance. The templates of that could draw on the framework that governs existing development partnerships. On its part, India can offer science and technology-based innovations to help the region as the scale and cost of our solutions are indeed very attractive. Covid-19 has also given an additional impetus to the diversification of the global value chain that was already in progress," said Jaishankar, adding, "India’s campaign for an Atmanirbhar Bharat or a self-reliant India resonates with our quest to become a democratic and trustworthy partner for global industrial resiliency. India has a strong record of climate action and has an ambitious vision, including renewables and green hydrogen. Cooperating more closely on Sustainable Development also lies at the heart of our collaboration on Indo-Pacific Ocean’s Initiative (IPOI) and ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP)."

"Our contemporary conversations will be relevant only if we adequately capture these emerging concerns. The centrality of ASEAN to the Indo-Pacific and the importance of India-ASEAN relations are self-evident. But if they have to continue to be salient, then we must strive to go beyond ideas and concepts that have outlived their shelf life," Jaishankar explained.