Second Meeting of India-Central Asia Dialogue

• 29 Oct 2020

Why in News

Recently, India virtually hosted the second meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue.

• The first meeting of the dialogue was held in Samarkand, the Republic of Uzbekistan in January 2019.

Key Points

• Combat Terrorism: All the nations strongly condemned terrorism and reaffirmed their determination to combat it by destroying terrorist safe-havens, networks, infrastructure and funding channels.
  
  • They also underlined the need for every country to ensure that their territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks against other countries.
• Afghan Peace Process: All countries called for the settlement of the Afghan conflict on the basis of Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process.
• Infrastructure: They appreciated India’s efforts to modernise the infrastructure of the Chabahar port in Iran, which could become an important link in trade and transport communications between the markets of Central and South Asia.
• Initiatives Announced by India:
  
  • An additional USD 1 billion Line of Credit by India for the Central Asian countries.
    
    • It is expected that the money will be spent on major infrastructural and connectivity projects.
  • Grant financing for high impact community development projects in the countries.
  • Establishment of working groups by India Central Asia Business Council comprising the key chambers of all participating countries.
    
    • The council was launched by the Government of India along with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in February 2020.
    • It aims to promote business in the region and to collaborate and provide an industry view to the governments of the six countries.

Line of Credit

• It is a credit facility extended by a bank or any other financial institution to a government, business or an individual customer, that enables the customer to draw the maximum loan amount.
• The borrower can access funds from the line of credit at any time as long as they do not exceed the maximum amount (or credit limit) set in the agreement and meet any other requirements such as making timely minimum payments.

India-Central Asia Dialogue

• It is a ministerial-level dialogue between India and the Central Asian countries namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
  
  • All five nations became independent states after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, post-Cold war.
• All the countries participating in the dialogue, except for Turkmenistan, are also members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
• The dialogue focuses on a number of issues including ways to improve connectivity and stabilise war-ravaged Afghanistan.
• In the first dialogue, India proposed setting up of ‘India-Central Asia Development Group’ to take forward development partnership between India and Central Asian countries.
  
  • The group will enable India to expand its footprints in the resource-rich region amid an ongoing standoff with China and to fight terror effectively, including in Afghanistan.

Source: TH