Thursday’s meeting is said to be the eighth meeting between the two leaders in the last two years.
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In this connection, Modi proposed a joint task force on connectivity to work on extension of the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
He also attended a dinner hosted by Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith.
The leaders called on all the countries to take comprehensive, expeditious and concrete actions to advance the implementation of SDGs in the spirit of equality, cooperation and inclusiveness, as well as to strengthen regional and global partnership in the implementation process.
The leaders will also exchange views on regional and worldwide issues of mutual interest and concern.
The East Asia Summit draft statement said ASEAN and its partners “reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability and security and freedom of navigation in and over-flight in the South China Sea”.
Stating that most countries in the South Asian region were pursuing a peaceful path to economic prosperity, he said: “But, there is one country in India’s neighbourhood whose competitive advantage rests exclusively in producing and exporting terrorism”.
“The two leaders reviewed progress on Indo US collaboration in nuclear energy, solar energy and innovation”.
“They agreed that efforts shall be made to orientate the development of China-India relations in the right direction”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a written reply to PTI today about how China viewed the meeting.
The issue of ownership of territories in the South China Sea has come to dominate ASEAN summits in recent years.
Over the past 25 years, China and ASEAN countries have witnessed huge economic growth, with an average annual growth rate of around 18.5 percent.
As to trade and investment cooperation, Li said China supports ASEAN’s leading role in negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and hopes negotiations could be accelerated to promote free trade and convenience.
Jose told reporters that both documents were effective immediately, and that the Indonesian delegation had called for a follow-up meeting of ASEAN senior officials for implementation on the ground, although he did not specify a timeframe.
The EAS is the premier leaders-led forum in the Asia-Pacific.
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India, being a founding member of the EAS, is committed to strengthening the EAS and making it more effective for dealing with contemporary challenges. The ASEAN leaders are scheduled to meet the heads of state, government of ASEAN dialogue partners which include China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and the United States.
