"Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is writing a letter to his Malaysian counterpart Abdullah Badawi expressing his keenness to finalise the FTA with ASEAN," Minister of State for Defence Procurement, Rao Inderjit Singh told Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, whose country is the current Chair of the grouping, during a bilateral meeting.
The letter would be taken to Kuala Lumpur by Commerce Minister Kamal Nath either on August 3 or August 7, Singh told PTI.
Inderjit Singh is in Kuala Lumpur to attend the ASEAN regional forum, the security grouping of the Asia-Pacific region. US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice arrived in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon to take part in the meeting.
"We are very interested in the FTA with ASEAN and from the original list of 1400 items we have got it down to around 850 items," Singh said adding, there was scope for further reduction but the country must remain engaged with ASEAN.
"Today ASEAN is at the heart of India's 'Look East' policy and we are interested in FTA talks," Singh noted. Singh's comments came after remarks by Malaysia's International Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz to the media a couple of days ago that ASEAN had suspended FTA talks with India.
Singh said other members of the ASEAN, who are in Kuala Lumpur to attend the grouping's Foreign Ministers' meeting and the ARF, had distanced themselves from Aziz's statement saying that they had not been consulted.
The Minister said Secretary (East) Rajeev Sikri had already met senior Malaysian officials and taken up the issue. Aziz had said India had put on the table 1,400 items that were deemed sensitive.
Noting that this list was reduced to 856 items, she said these products accounted for 30 per cent of ASEAN exports to India.
"As a result of having to constantly discuss the same process, negotiation with India was suspended," Bernama news agency had quoted her as saying.
During Singh's talks with Syed Hamid, the minister also raised the issue of its rail manufacturing company IRCON not being given a contract about which Malaysia had almost assured New Delhi in its Ninth Malaysia Plan. The Malaysian Minister said he would look into the matter.
The two leaders also talked about a possible India-Malaysia agreement on recruitment of workers. Singh said hundreds of Indian workers were "duped" by job agents when they landed in this country, especially on the amount of salary promised and stressed on the need for Malaysia to work out a minimum wage.
Singh and Syed Hamid also talked about palm oil tariffs. India imports crude oil from Indonesia and refined oil from Malaysia.
The Indian Minister said there was a difference in duty because of the type of oil imported. "We told Malaysia that the duty was less on oil from Indonesia as it was in the crude form."