Connectivity through northeast key to trade with Asean: Experts

IANS New Delhi, February 17 Establishing connectivity through the country’s northeast will help India bolster trade with the southeast Asian markets, experts here said on Wednesday. “There was a wrong hegemonic discourse that the northeast was a region of conflict,” Mahendra P. Lama, founding vice-chancellor of the Central University of Sikkim, said while speaking at a session on “Promoting cross-border trade with Asean: Capitalising on comparative advantage”, held as part of the eighth edition of the Delhi Dialogue here. “Now, the northeast is the bridge to southeast Asia,” he said. The Delhi Dialogue is a premier annual track 1.5 diplomatic event to discuss the politico-security, economic and socio-cultural engagement between India and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).