The Hindu : National : `Need for economic ties among South Asian nations'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 09, 2004

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National

`Need for economic ties among South Asian nations'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, JULY 8. Terming the years from 1998 to 2002 as the "lost years" of SAARC, the former Foreign Secretary, Muchkund Dubey, said progress towards the South Asian Free Trade Agreement had been held hostage to the lack of political will.

At a seminar on `Reconstructing South Asia: Vision and Mission Ahead' here on Thursday, Prof. Dubey underscored economic cooperation to meet the challenges of globalisation. He found fault with the piecemeal efforts at economic integration and said that to be effective and legal, the Free Trade Agreement had to include almost all commodities as well as have a clear time schedule for implemented.

He added that India, on account of its size and location, should take the lead in announcing unilateral free trade and capital account convertibility with its neighbours to build confidence among them about economic integration. He wanted India to pursue more joint projects with neighbouring countries like the natural gas pipeline through Pakistan and water resources with Nepal and Bangladesh.

Inaugurating, V.R. Raghavan, former Lt. General of the Indian Army and currently director of the think-tank Delhi Policy Group, said a combination of poverty and insecurity defined South Asia at present and the need of the hour was to work collectively a way out of this.

For most residents of this region, while the borders were reasonably secure, it was their daily economic and social conditions which generated intense insecurities.

It was the availability of the next meal, protection from ethnic violence, social fragmentation and migration and access to medical and educational facilities which were foremost on the minds of people in South Asia, he said. Most conflicts in the region emerged from these issues. The two-day seminar, organised by the Indo-American Centre for International Studies, is being attended by the Deputy High Commissioners of Sri Lanka and Pakistan, apart from experts from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The Vice-Chairman, UGC, V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, and the Director, IACIS, Isaac Sequeira, spoke.

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