New Delhi: India will have to scale down its tariffs to the levels prevalent in ASEAN countries to facilitate closer co-operation and boost trade ties with the economies of that region as well as of East Asia, the prime minister Manmohan Singh has stated.

Singh said, "For the last 10 years, successive finance ministers have said our tariff levels should move down and approach ASEAN levels. We have moved a great deal in that direction, but a lot needs to be done still."

The prime minister was speaking at a function after releasing a commemorative stamp marking the 121st birth anniversary of the late Seth Walchand Hirachand, business and maritime pioneer who founded the Hindustan Construction Company Ltd and Hindustan Aircraft Ltd, now the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

Paying tributes to the late visionary, Singh said, "It is, indeed, one of the saddest chapters of our industrial policy that we failed to build on the foundation established by Walchand Hirachand in this area.

"India has had a rich, maritime history and even an impressive history of shipbuilding. Yet, few view India today as a major, maritime economy. There has been a neglect of shipbuilding, a neglect of ports, above all, a neglect of foreign trade."

Expressing concern over the neglect on all these fronts, the prime minister was confident that now, India was in a position to bring down its tariff to the levels prevailing in the ASEAN countries to boost investments.

"We can accelerate this process now and take steps to enable a closer interaction between our economy and the economies of the ASEAN region," he said.

And for India to emerge as a major maritime power, Singh said the country''s infrastructure, mainly its ports and docks, have to be modernised.

"We must modernise our maritime infrastructure. We must also modernise our mindset," he stressed.