A packed schedule awaits Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he arrives here Sunday for the 3rd summit between India and ASEAN, including several bilateral engagements.
Even as finer details of Singh's itinerary are being worked out, officials here said the prime minister was expected to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao Tuesday. This will be their first meeting since Manmohan Singh took office in May.
The meeting between the two leaders comes after a recent visit by India's National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit to Beijing.
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and Dixit are also expected to take part in the India-China bilateral discussions.
"The prime minister and I look forward to the next few days of constructive discussions with our friends and neighbours in this strategically important region," Natwar Singh, who arrived here Friday, told IANS. He declined to go into specifics.
Besides China, Manmohan Singh is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Bounnhang Vorachit of Laos, the host for the summit, besides calling on Laos' President Khamtay Siphandone at the presidential palace.
Other bilateral engagements include meetings with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, Vietnamese Premier Phan Van Khai and Junichiro Koizumi of Japan.
Officials said the meeting between Manmohan Singh and Wen assumes significance in the context of the Chinese premier's visit to India expected early next year and the fourth round of border talks that concluded in Beijing last week.
After Dixit's meeting in Beijing, during which he also met with Wen, both sides had signalled that the border issue, the main roadblock in Sino-Indian ties, were progressing smoothly.
It was for this reason that the Indian side had suggested the Sino-India model for peace talks with Pakistan when Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited New Delhi earlier this week.
Other bilateral matters coinciding with Manmohan Singh's visit here include the inauguration of India-Laos IT Centre.
Under the initiative, India will help Laos set up IT training laboratories, a national data centre, V-sat based network for 18 provinces, enact cyber security and related laws, and establish certification authorities.
India is also setting up a Laos-India Entrepreneurship Development Centre as part of Vientiane's contribution to the Initiative for Asean Integration.
--Indo-Asian News Service