LOK SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1456
ANSWERED ON- 28/07/2023
INDIA’S ACT-EAST POLICY
1456. SHRI TAPIR GAO
Will the Minister of EXTERNAL AFFAIRS be pleased to state :-
(a) the details including salient features and objectives of India’s Act-East policy introduced by the Government;
(b) the steps taken by the Government to extend development cooperation to its neighbours to assist them in areas such as trade, development, and connectivity; and
(c) the details of major infrastructure projects being implemented by the Government in neighbouring countries?
ANSWER
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
(SHRI V. MURALEEDHARAN)
(a) The Act East Policy focuses on the extended neighbourhood in the Indo-Pacific region, with ASEAN as its core. The objective of Act East Policy is to promote economic cooperation, cultural ties and develop strategic relationships with countries in the Indo-Pacific region through continuous engagement at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels, thereby providing enhanced connectivity in its broadest sense, including political, economic, cultural and people to people relations.
(b & c) Under the Neighbourhood First Policy, development cooperation is an important component of our engagement with neighbouring countries with specific focus to improve the bilateral engagement covering all facets of socio-economic development including trade and connectivity. India’s development assistance is based on the needs of the partner countries and is geared towards responding to as many of the requests received from these countries as technically and financially feasible. The main instruments of India’s development assistance include Lines of Credit (LOC), Grant assistance, High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP), Technical Consultancy, Disaster Relief and Humanitarian aid, as well as capacity-building programmes under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC). Indian expertise is showcased in project planning and implementation in a wide range of areas covering both infrastructure development as well as socio-economic development. The details of major infrastructure projects being implemented by the Government in neighbouring countries under LOC and Grant in Aid are placed at Annexure-I
and Annexure-II respectively.
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