21st ASEAN-India Summit in Laos

♦ Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the 21st ASEAN-India Summit in Laos on 10 October 2024. There he announced a 10-point plan to strengthen India-ASEAN comprehensive partnership and asserted that ties with the regional grouping were critical to guiding Asia’s future.

♦ Modi noted that India-ASEAN trade had doubled to over USD 130 billion in the past decade and announced a review of the trade in goods agreement to harness the greater economic potential of the partnership.

♦ The Prime Minister said India was commemorating the 10th anniversary of its Act East Policy, which has given new energy, direction and momentum to the historic relationship between India and the ASEAN nations.

♦ The 10 member countries of ASEAN are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.

12th Meeting of the India-UAE High Level Joint Task Force

♦ The 12th Meeting of the India-UAE High Level Joint Task Force on Investments (HLJTFI) took place in Mumbai. The HLJTFI was established in 2013 to promote trade, investment and economic ties between India and the UAE. 

♦ On this occation, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has informed that the Indian and UAE governments are working on interlinking of UPI of India and the AANI of UAE. It will facilitate seamless cross-border transactions between two countries. This will benefit over 3 million Indians residing in the UAE enabling them to use the power of UPI and AANI. He also informed that UAE has agreed to set up food parks in India and around 2 billion dollar investment is expected in these food parks in 2-2.5 years.

♦ On trade relations following the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), Goyal said that total trade between India and the UAE had reached $84 billion in the 2023-24 period. Significantly, the trade deficit had been reduced from $22 billion to $12 billion. In the first half of 2024, non-oil trade between the two nations grew by 9.8%, amounting to $28.2 billion.

♦ The UAE became India’s fourth-largest foreign investor in 2023, with $3.35 billion committed across various sectors, marking a threefold increase from 2022. Indian FDI in the UAE also saw a significant rise, totaling $2.05 billion in 2023—more than the combined total of 2021 and 2022.

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi

♦ Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House on 7 October 2024 to discuss deepening the bilateral relationship between the two nations.

♦ India signed a major currency swap agreement with the Maldives for $750 million to help the island nation tide over its current foreign currency crunch.

♦ The swap arrangement for $400 million and an additional Rs.3,000 crore ($357 million), signed between the Reserve Bank of India and the Maldives Monetary Authority under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Currency Swap Framework, will be available until 2027. It enables payments between the two countries to be made in different currencies.

♦ Among the agreements signed are for the launch of the RuPay card in the Maldives and handover of 700 houses built with assistance by India. 

♦ Memorandums of understanding were inked between the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Anti-Corruption Commission of the Maldives and between policing institutes and judicial training institutes; and also for cooperation in sports and youth affairs.

India and Jamaica exchanged four Memorandum of Understanding

♦ India and Jamaica exchanged four Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the fields of Digital Public Infrastructure, Cultural Exchange and Sports. These MoUs were exchanged after delegation-level talks held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his visiting Jamaican counterpart Dr Andrew Holness in New Delhi on 1 October 2024.

♦ Holness is the first Jamaican premier to visit India.