India-China energy partnership to benefit Asia
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-02 13:55

"If that search for energy security is mishandled, it could lead to significant insecurity and it is particularly important for Southeast Asia.

Cyclists pass under a board displaying oil prices at a PetroChina station in Beijing August 31, 2005. PetroChina Co. Ltd. is selling up to HK$21 billion ($2.7 billion) of shares at a discount of 5 to 7 percent, taking advantage of record oil prices that have sent its stock up 52 percent this year. [Reuters]

"It is the part of the world in which the spheres of interest of the two countries most naturally overlap and is also potentially a significant source of energy itself," he said, adding that Southeast Asia is also a crucial transit area for oil shipments.

The narrow 960-kilometre-long (600-mile) Malacca Strait in Southeast Asian waters is one of the world's busiest trading routes, used by about 50,000 ships a year carrying a third of global trade and half its oil supplies.

The Asian Development Bank said last month that China and India will carry the region's economic growth rates over the next two years.

It forecast gross domestic product ( GDP) growth of 9.2 percent for China and 6.9 percent for India in 2005, boosting the average growth rate for Asia-Pacific developing economies this year to 6.6 percent.

However, the ADB cut its GDP forecast for Southeast Asia to 5.0 percent in 2005 due to poor harvests in the Philippines and Thailand, a cyclical downturn in the global electronics sector and higher oil prices.

According to White, it is better to have New Delhi and Beijing working together than competing, preventing "a competition for power and influence."

Last year, China overtook Japan as the world's second largest crude importer after the United States. It relies on imports for about 3.7 million barrels per day or 40 percent of its oil needs.

India was the world's fifth largest petroleum consumer in 2004 and imports nearly 70 percent of its oil needs.

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