New Delhi: After starting work on a trilateral highway project to link Thailand and Myanmar with India, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on September 4 said government is considering a rail-link to connect New Delhi and Hanoi.

"Work has started on a trilateral highway project linking Thailand, Myanmar and India...under the Mekong-Ganga co-operation, we are also looking at New Delhi to Hanoi rail link," Vajpayee said inaugurating the second India- Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Summit in New Delhi.

Mekong-Ganga co-operation provides a framework for closer cultural and people-to-people links between the people of ancient land bound by these two great Asian rivers.

Stressing that trade and investment were basic building blocks of the India-ASEAN relationship, Vajpayee said bilateral trade now at $ 10 billion has to be stepped up to $ 15 billion in the next two years and then doubled to $ 30 billion by 2007.

Vajpayee said there have been new initiatives in trade and investment with Singapore and Thailand and new bilateral programmes with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

"We have also made remarkable progress towards a Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between India and ASEAN," he said, adding that only on September 3 economic ministers reached an agreement to be signed at Bali Summit later in 2003.

PTI