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The ASEAN-India economic integration has made substantial progress in recent years. India’s engagements with Southeast and East Asia have received new momentum under the Act East Policy (AEP). In 2017, ASEAN and India will be celebrating 25 years of their dialogue relations. The relationship is set to deepen in coming days as ASEAN and India step up their collaboration across a range of economic and strategic issues, including trade and connectivity, culture, people-to-people links, trans-national terrorism, and maritime security. However, both of them have been facing several challenges, which call for concerted efforts by ASEAN and India. With ASEAN and India working towards establishing a Comprehensive Free Trade Area through Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, their cooperation will be key to promoting economic stability, competitiveness, growth and integration in the region.

This book is a timely initiative to review the past and suggest the ways to further strengthen the economic partnership. It primarily deals with the economic integration issues between ASEAN and India, and assesses policy priorities, effectiveness, implementation imperatives and challenges. Each chapter in this book tries to capture essential features of the crosscutting issues and attempts to draw some policy implications. It will be a valuable reference for policymakers, academics and practitioners.

Contents: Preface/Prabir De and Suthiphand Chirathivat.1. Introduction/Prabir De and Suthiphand Chirathivat. 2. ASEAN- India Political Cooperation: How to Reinforce a Much Needed Pillar?/Sophie Boisseau du Rocher. 3. Act East Policy and India’s Cultural Diplomacy with ASEAN/Ishani Naskar. 4. Reassessing the Impact of the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement/Tham Siew Yean and Andrew Kam Jia Yi. 5. Will India Gain from India-ASEAN FTA? Analysis of simulated scenarios based on phased implementation/Chandrima Sikdar and Biswajit Nag. 6. ASEAN Attempts at the Initiatives to Broaden Free Trade Agreements in East Asia/Suthiphand Chirathivat. 7. India-Thailand Partnership: Way Towards Greater Cooperation/Sineenat Sermcheep, Piti Srisangnam and Nuanpan Thamanovanish. 8. India-ASEAN Production Networks: What is There for Indian SMEs? Biswajit Nag. 9. Trade in Services in Asia-Pacific: Assessing Barriers and Implications for Services Trade Facilitation in India/Durairaj Kumarasamy and Imdadul Islam Halder. 10. ASEAN-India Connectivity: Progress So Far/Suthiphand Chirathivat and Anupama D. Masali. 11. Look East to Act East: Connectivity Challenges to India’s Northeast/Prabir De and P K H Singh.12. Education and Knowledge Institutional Cooperation with Special Reference to Science, Society and Innovation for Sustainability/Lawrence Surendra.