Kerala will benefit from ASEAN agreement: Antony

Defence Minister and senior Congress leader A K Antony today assured that Kerala would only benefit from the free trade agreement with ASEAN countries.

Addressing a by-election rally here, Mr Antony said, ''the contention of the CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government in the State that the agreement would be detrimental to the interests of the agriculture and fisheries sectors was unfounded.'' Refuting the allegations of State Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan that there was no negative list in the agreement, Mr Antony said, ''the negative list is part of the agreement and various products of the state had been included in the list meaning that its duty would not be touched.'' Launching a scathing attack against the state government, Mr Antony said the government was a failure on all fronts and development projects were in a limbo or still on paper. ''The Centre had given numerous projects to the State like the Vallarpadam Transshipment project but the government is not showing the drive to complete the projects in a time-bound manner,'' he added.

Exuding confidence, Mr Antony said the UDF candidates would win the November 7 by-elections to Kannur, Ernakulam and Alappuzha seats with a thumping majority and that could be a fitting reply to the misgovernance of the LDF Government.

-- (UNI) -- 04DR103.xml

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