Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is visiting Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) on 20-21 September where he will hold deliberations with his counterparts from East Asia Summit (EAS) members on regional and global economic developments.

As per the information shared by the Commerce Ministry, Goyal will participate in the 21st ASEAN-India Economic Ministers (AEM-India) meeting and the 12th East Asia Summit Economic Ministers Meeting (EAS EMM).

These annual meetings of ASEAN with their dialogue partners are being hosted this year by Lao PDR, the ASEAN Chair for 2024.

Minister Goyal will have a number of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from participating countries on the sidelines of two institutional meetings.

Meetings have been scheduled with the Minister of host country Lao PDR and visiting Ministers from Korea, Malaysia, Switzerland and Myanmar.

Mr Goyal will also meet the ASEAN Secretary General and President of ERIA, a premier research institute for Asia and Pacific.

Further, he will also have an interaction with the Indian diaspora in Lao PDR and will also meet a visiting industry delegation from India as well as ASEAN.

In the AEM-India meeting, the ministers will review the progress in negotiations for review of ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA).

The review of AITIGA is high on India’s priority to make it more user friendly, simple and trade facilitative for businesses.

In EAS EMM, the Ministers will deliberate on regional and global economic developments. Notably, India is the founding member of East Asia Summit Forum which is completing its two decades next year.

The EAS EMM witnesses participation by Economic Ministers of 10 ASEAN countries and 8 other EAS partners — India, USA, Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

India joined ASEAN in 1992 and became its Comprehensive Strategic Partner in 2022.

The next round of talks for the ongoing review meeting of the India-Asean free trade agreement in goods will be held in November. The third round of the negotiations was concluded on August 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

India’s exports to the 10-nation bloc ASEAN were USD 41.2 billion in 2023-24 while imports aggregated at USD 80 billion in the last fiscal.