The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) for East Asia in which India would be a partner will be launched at the 7th East Asia Summit (EAS) in Phnom Penh in Cambodia on November 20.

EAS consists of 10 ASEAN members plus Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, US, Russia. EAS began in 2005.

The Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is leaving for Phnom Penh on Sunday ahead of the EAS to attend the 10th ASEAN-India Summit in the same city beginning from November 18.

Dr Singh is expected to have bilateral meetings with the heads of governments at the margins of the 10th ASEAN-India Summit and 7th EAS.

Dr Singh also provide an update to the establishment of the Nalanda University. India has recently set up a Steering Committee to oversee the Global Design Competition.

This 10th ASEAN-India Summit is crucial as New Delhi will be hosting India-ASEAN Commemorative Summit on December 20-21 to celebrate 20 years of its engagement with ASEAN.

From a Sectoral Dialogue Partnership in 1992 and full Dialogue Partnership in 1996, India’s partnership with ASEAN was elevated to annual summits in 2002, and Cambodia hosted the first ASEAN-India Summit and is hosting the 1oth edition also.

Dr Singh will receive the Report of the ASEAN-India Eminent Persons Group at the 10th ASEAN-India Summit

The design of the RCEP is to cover both ASEAN and the East Asia region. Basically ASEAN has five Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) - with Japan, South Korea, China, India and a combined FTA with Australia and New Zealand. All these ASEAN+One FTAs are thought to be converted into an ASEAN+Six arrangement in which all of them would pool in and create a common economic space. Negotiations for this had begun under the rubric of Comprehensive Economic Programme for East Asia (CEPEA), and this has now been subsumed into RCEP.

ASEAN-India trade in 2011-12 was around $ 79 billion, crossing the target of $ 70 billion by 2012 set in 2009. India has a Free Trade Agreement in Goods, which was signed in 2009 which became fully operational in August 2011. Negotiations are underway on the FTA on Services and Investments.

The ASEAN-India Business Fair and Business Council Meeting would be held on December 18-20.

The intensive sectoral cooperation between ASEAN and India had been identified under the Plan of Action for ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity for 2010-15. The activities and collaborative projects under this Plan of Action are being met out of the $ 50 million committed by India to the ASEAN-India Cooperation Fund in 2009. Another $ 5 million are available under the ASEAN-India Green Fund set up in 2007 to promote adaptation and mitigation technologies in the area of climate change, and $ 1 million is being used from the ASEAN-India Science and Technology Development Fund also set up in 2007.

In the political field, India has been participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus, and the Extended ASEAN Maritime Forum meetings, and the ongoing agenda includes cooperation to combat non-traditional threats such as anti-piracy cooperation, combating terrorism and drug trafficking.

India supports the Initiative for ASEAN Integration and has set up English Language Training Centres, Entrepreneurship Development Centres, and Vocational Training Centres in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV countries). India allocate over 600 scholarships annually under ITEC for ASEAN countries. ICCR also extends fellowships to the CLMV countries.

Connectivity with ASEAN, in all its three dimensions - geographical, institutional and people-to-people - is a matter of priority. The Trilateral Highway under construction between India, Myanmar and Thailand would connect Moreh in India to Mae Sot in Thailand.

Two flagship events planned in this India-ASEAN Commemorative Year are the ASEAN-India Car Rally 2012 which will be flagged off from Yogyakarta on November 26, an Expedition by INS Sudarshini, a sail training ship of the Indian Navy, which set sail for ASEAN countries on September 15 from Kochi on a six month long expedition.

Prime Minister Dr Singh will meet his ASEAN counterparts in the afternoon of November 19 for the 10th ASEAN-India Summit. The Leaders will take cognizance of the intensification of relations since their last meeting in Bali in November 2011. The Leaders will discuss the Commemorative Summit which has the theme 'ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace and Shared Prosperity' and which India will be hosting in New Delhi on December 20-21 to mark the 20th anniversary of this relationship and the 10th anniversary of ASEAN-India summit-level partnership

At the 7th EAS is scheduled on November 20 the leaders would hold discussions in Plenary and a Retreat. The five priority areas for regional cooperation within the framework of the EAS include energy, education, finance, natural disaster management, and global health and pandemics. The issues of connectivity and regional economic integration are also included in the EAS agenda as priority areas for the Sixth EAS. During the Retreat session, the Leaders will exchange views on regional and international issues.

The EAS leaders are expected to consider adoption of the Phnom Penh Declaration on East Asia Summit Development Initiative. They would also consider a Declaration on Regional Response to Malaria Control and Addressing Resistance to Anti-malarial Medicines. They would witness the launch of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).