Indian PM to officially visit Thailand May 30-31

BANGKOK, May 23 (TNA) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to pay an official visit to Thailand from May 30-31, as invited by his Thai counterpart Yingluck Shinawatra, to promote strategic partnership and mutual interest between both Asian allied nations. The official reception for the Indian Prime Minister will be organized at Bangkok's Government House on May 30, after which the Indian and Thai Premiers will have their bilateral talks on developing bilateral relations between Indian and Thailand to be the strategic partnership based on democratic norms, human rights framework and mutual benefits for sustainable growth and development, as jointly agreed by both sides in January 2012. During the bilateral discussions, the Indian and Thai Prime Ministers will also review progress of existing cooperation between New Delhi and Bangkok and will look for new fields of cooperation for mutual interest. Singh's upcoming trip will be his first official visit to Thailand at the bilateral level. Earlier, Singh visited Thailand to attend the 1st Meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in 2004 and the 15th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in 2009. Premier Yingluck, on the other hand, visited India twice in 2012 to celebrate the Republic Day of India in January and to attend the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in December. The exchange of visits shows the development of Thai-Indian relations in bilateral and multilateral levels and reflects Thailand’s Look West policy and India’s Look East policy for mutual interest, especially in food and energy security. (TNA)