It's time to clear off mutual rows
The Saarc Summit kicks off in Nepal tomorrow amid high hopes of a jumpstart to the moribund pact, set off by regional superpower India's wish to forge stronger and substantive ties with neighbours.
Established about 30 years ago with the aim to bring about shared economic prosperity, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation today is the world's least integrated trade and economic bloc.
But the steps taken over the past few months by the new Indian government led by business-friendly Narendra Modi have fuelled hopes of greater integration and cooperation in the region.
“A great deal is expected of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kathmandu. He can deliver a game-changer,” former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran said.
Foreign affairs experts have stressed the need for taking the upcoming 18th Saarc Summit as an opportunity for resolving regional problems.
They said there were immense possibilities in the region to develop but
simultaneously there were hurdles and challenges. Saarc member states should clear off their mutual problems for the benefit of the 1.8 billion people of the region.
Experts said the South Asian leaders should utilise the summit as a means to consolidate mutual ties with the expansion of road and railway connectivity and trade in the region.
The governments of India and Bangladesh have already cleared three key framework agreements for signing in the summit to enhance rail and road connectivity and setting up of a regional power grid.
Approval of the three key agreements could effectively allow seamless vehicular movement across Saarc countries, and improve the electricity availability in the entire region.
The agreement on railways between member countries “will not only provide stimulus to the economic development in the region as a whole but also promote social and cultural contact and encourage tourism amongst the member states”.
But, these pacts would have to be agreed to bilaterally by member countries before they could take effect.
Although there is a common feeling that Saarc Summits have simply been a reiteration of the same old agendas, identified decades ago, new themes like connectivity and building bridges have since been adopted. But ideas those have remained largely unimplemented.
For this very reason, Saarc Summits are increasingly being viewed as occasions for merely dissipating the scarce resources of poor member countries on lavish holidays and retreats for the heads of state and government.
The Saarc website shows 16 areas, ranging from agriculture to tourism, identified for cooperation at the 17 summits held so far but translating those ideas into collective action remained problematic.
For example, the Saarc Convention on Terrorism was evolved in 1987, within two years of inception of Saarc and way before the 9/11 attacks in the US.
However, the South Asian nations have failed to make the convention effective and eliminate terrorism and incidences of terror acts continued in the region.
Similar is the progress made on the Saarc Preferential Trading Arrangement (Sapta) approved in 1993 to become operational in 1995. It was later renamed South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta) in 2006, but narrow political considerations and suspicion among member states have prevented its benefits to be reaped.
So Saarc protocols and conventions look largely good on paper and dreams remain dreams.
Saarc has also failed to bring dynamism in regional trade as the member-states have not learnt from the experience of other groupings like the Asean and the EU to adopt collective action to combine their strengths for overcoming their weaknesses.
Despite having good prospect of the market of 1.7 billion people, intra-regional trade has not increased much. The current volume of intra-Saarc trade is less than 5 percent of the total trade of South Asia while that of Asean trade is 26 percent and EU trade is over 45 percent.
Despite the weaknesses and failures, Saarc has come a long way in bringing people closer to each other. Progress is there, but there could have been more and the success achieved cannot be undermined.
Bangladesh as the champion of Saarc has been playing an active role in helping strengthen cooperation among member states in the areas of connectivity, trade, energy and security.
Dhaka believes that once the three key framework agreements, which New Delhi has also approved, are signed, exchange of goods and people would improve and cooperation in the energy sector would be strengthened.
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