The government’s top priority is to find means to restart the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway since it has been a “very difficult project” due to the circumstances in Myanmar, according to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday.
Jaishankar is in town to take part in the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers’ Retreat and the 12th Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) Mechanism Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.
Jaishankar talked to the Indian community shortly after his arrival and discussed the connections between Thailand and India.
“How do we establish road connection between Thailand? That is the major difficulty that we have today and is something we are working on.In order to link with Thailand, we have a proposal from northeast India that calls for constructing a road across Myanmar, Jaishankar stated.
He said that with adequate road connection, both the flow of people and products will alter significantly.
But it was an extremely challenging assignment. The major reason why the project has been so challenging is because of the circumstances in Myanmar. Because so much of the project has already been constructed, finding methods to continue working on it, unlock it, and make it is one of our top goals right now, according to Jaishankar.
A 1,400 km long motorway being built by India, Thailand, and Myanmar would connect the region to Southeast Asia by road and strengthen relations in commerce, business, health, education, and tourism between the three nations.
The planned India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway is about 70% of the way through development.
The highway will go via Myanmar to link Moreh in Manipur, India, with Mae Sot in Thailand.
Project for the strategic highway has been postponed. Previously, the government wanted to open the route by December 2019.
Jaishankar said that India and Thailand have had a long-standing friendship.
“This connection dates back many centuries in both history and culture. Following independence, a romance was restarted and is now blossoming. The 1990s saw a higher acceleration of it. But for this partnership, the previous ten years have been a very, very different time,” he remarked.
He also discussed the expansion of India’s economy throughout his speech.
There aren’t many large economies in the world now that are expanding at rates higher than 5%, if you look at their main economy. Despite all the issues in the globe, we want to go closer to 7% growth today,” Jaishankar added.
He also commended the Indian community in Thailand for their assistance during the COVID outbreak.
He also emphasized the developments taking place in India.
Speaking on India’s digitisation, he said that everyone now is looking at digital India and how digital talent and the digital infrastructure are being used to improve governance, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg to Satya Nadella to Elon Musk.
“That is really you know, when we say confidently that we have it in us in the next 25 years to become a developed country,” Jaishankar said.
When describing the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he remarked, “We used to be thought of as a nation that was really tough on climate change. We are regarded as one of the climate change leaders today. He said that in the last ten years, Prime Minister Modi’s team has made the most significant climate change recommendations.
He said, in reference to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, “There is a grain shortage in the world, which is made worse by the fact that grain is not coming out of Ukraine and Russia.”
According to Jaishankar, it is Prime Minister Modi who is promoting the notion of growing millets since they use less water and have a variety of fresh sources.
“I’m not downplaying the difficulties; issues will arise. Being the nation with the most population and without experiencing issues is impossible. There will always be difficulties in a growing nation, but the question now is how firmly, with what conviction, commitment, vision, and leadership, we are tackling some of them, he added.
