Hanoi (VNA) – Senior officials of ASEANcountries and India agreed to enhance the two sides’ cooperation in variousfields at their 22nd annual meeting held online on July 16.

Deputy Foreign Minister of India Vijay ThakurSingh said her country always attaches importance to ASEAN and supports thebloc’s central role in the regional architecture.

India also highly values Vietnam’s ASEANchairmanship as well as effective guiding and coordinating capacity inpromoting the bloc’s efforts to overcome COVID-19-induced difficulties andchallenges and in devising suitable orientations for ASEAN cooperation anddevelopment in the current context, according to her.

At the meeting, ASEAN and India agreed to stepup partnerships in economy, trade, investment, maritime cooperation, terrorismand transnational crime fight, science – technology, innovation, disasterprevention and mitigation, climate change response, cultural and people-to-peopleexchange, and development gap narrowing.

They concurred in making efforts to achieve 200billion USD in bilateral trade by 2022.

Besides, ASEAN welcomed India’s credit packageof 1 billion USD for bilateral connectivity projects, along with the country’sprovision of 1,000 scholarships for PhD students from ASEAN countries.

Regarding COVID-19 response, India said itsupports the use of the ASEAN-India Cooperation Fund to assist projects onaddressing pandemic aftermath, and that it will coordinate closely with ASEANin developing and producing COVID-19 vaccines and medicine.

Meanwhile, ASEAN countries applauded India’sattainments in curbing COVID-19 and encouraged the country to support thebloc’s initiatives in settling pandemic aftermath, maintaining regional andglobal supply chains, and promoting sustainable recovery.

The two sides also agreed to continue assistingeach other’s citizens affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Regarding international and regional issues,India provided ASEAN countries with detailed information about the Indo-PacificOcean Initiative proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 16thASEAN-India Summit in 2019, along with the situation of India-China relations.

The South Asian nation also emphasised that itwelcomes ASEAN bringing into play its role in fostering cooperation, dialogueand trust building in the region, and it also supports efforts to seriously andfully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea andbuild an efficient and effective Code of Conduct in the waters in line withinternational law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Representing Vietnam – Chair of ASEAN in 2020,Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of the country’s ASEAN SeniorOfficials’ Meeting delegation, noted the bloc’s priorities and majorcooperation directions in the “Cohesive and Responsive” spirit this year. Healso highlighted the ASEAN Community’s proactive and active efforts to weathercurrent difficulties and challenges.

He suggested ASEAN and India continue activelycontributing to the building of an open, free, equal and rules-basedmultilateral trading system, facilitate trade and investment liberalisation,and encourage businesses to optimize the ASEAN-India free trade agreement so asto bolster bilateral trade and investment amid challenges facing the regionaland global economy.

The deputy minister also affirmed that ASEANcountries attach importance to India’s participation in the RegionalComprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.

They believe this deal will reflect the bloc andits partners’ strong commitment to economic liberalisation and connectivity andgreatly help with recovery and efforts to overcome pandemic-induced challenges,he added./.