Indian PM to attend ASEM Summit for first time

BEIJING: India would be making its debut at the highest level at the Asia-Europe (ASEM) Summit here when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attends the meeting set to be dominated by the raging global economic turmoil.
    
After winding up his three-day official visit to Japan, Singh would be here to attend the Seventh ASEM meeting starting on Friday and being attended by a host of other world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
    
On the sidelines of the Summit, Singh would have meetings with Merkel, Chinese President Hu Jintao, President of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar, President of Bulgaria Georgi Parvarov, besides Italian and Vietnamese Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Nguyen Tan Dung in a bid to promote bilateral ties and exchange views on issues of common interests.
    
There is no official word yet as to whether Singh would formally meet Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is also here to attend the Summit.
    
In Tokyo, Singh noted that the international financial crisis has revealed the extraordinary vulnerability of the global financial system even in the industrialised world.
    
"The crisis has choked credit flows and predictably spilled over to the stock market. We have to prevent the liquidity crisis from becoming a crisis of confidence in the international monetary and financial system," he said.
    
India would be attending this Summit at the Head of Government level for the first time.
     
In May 2007, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had attended the Ministerial meeting of the ASEM in Hamburg, Germany. But this is the first time the country is participating at the Summit level.

"Developing countries like India are also affected by the crisis and have to be part of the solution. We cannot afford to risk the gains we have made in the last few years. Nor do we wish to remain vulnerable to infirmities in international surveillance, supervision and regulatory mechanisms in the future," Singh said.
    
ASEM is basically a grouping of 27 European Union Members, 10 ASEAN members, the three North-East Asian members - China, Japan and South Korea.
    
Apart from India, Pakistan, Mongolia and the ASEAN Secretariat are expected to participate in the Beijing Summit for the first time, just as Bulgaria and Romania are doing so from the European Union's side.
    
The theme this time is 'Vision and Action  Towards a Win-Win Solution'.
    
At the Summit the leaders will focus their discussions on the political, economic, social and cultural issues, including the those related to sustainable development.
    
"It will provide a very good opportunity for us to exchange views on a variety of topics including, of course, the present international financial situation," N Ravi, Secretary (East) of the External Affairs Ministry said.
    
The Summit would issue a Chairman's statement expounding the stances of Asia and Europe on major international and regional issues.
    
The international financial situation would be discussed amongst the leaders, Ravi said, adding that other topics like energy, climate change and food security would figure prominently.
    
One of the objectives of the Summit is to help achieve consensus and promote exchanges and cooperation between the two regions.