Kamal Nath, union minister of commerce & industry, would be representing the Prime Minister at the 7th Association of South East Nations (ASEAN)-India Summit and the fourth East Asia Summit, which is scheduled to be held during April 11 – 12, 2009 in Thailand.

ASEAN held these summits on a yearly basis.

Leaders of state/government of the 10 ASEAN member nations in addition to its dialogue associates including India, China, Japan, Korea, etc attended the summits.

A key feature of the East Asia Summit, which comprises heads of ASEAN, India, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, this time, would be a focus session with heads of global agencies comprising World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Asian Development Bank (ADB), etc.

India would be looking forward to advancement in a variety of cooperation plans with ASEAN that consists of free trade agreement (FTA), open skies plan, science & technology fund, tourism etc.

India would also take up matters related to energy, atmosphere, disaster mitigation, financial partnership study, etc in the meeting of the 16 member East Asia Summit.