SAARC sub-regional group kicks off

[Free Karma]

SAARC sub-regional group kicks off | Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis

Realising that Pakistan's obduracy is obstructing the progress of eight-nation South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) grouping, prime minister Narendra Modi has quietly pulled a diplomatic coup by convincing three-member countries to form a sub-regional alliance to purse an agenda of development and connectivity.

In order to make Pakistan irrelevant in the regional grouping, which has been halting several initiatives, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal have come together to form a joint working group. Though, the idea had been conceived in 2013, it got a fillip last November, when Modi participated in the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu. Without naming Pakistan, he spoke about pro-active measures taken by India but expressed pessimism that groping has not stood to its potential.


What are the benefits of sub-regional grouping?

Security experts have been asking India to use its geography and create sub-regional platforms of cooperation to circumvent Islamabad's opposition to several trade-related initiatives. There are now moves to set up similar groups with Sri Lanka and Maldives in the South to realise the potential of SAARC, whose intra-nation trade so far accounts a little over just 1% of SAARC's GDP. In contrast, in ASEAN, smaller than SAARC in terms of size of economy, the intra-bloc trade stands at 10% of its GDP. Officials here concede that making a platform with Afghanistan will be difficult because, it doesn't have borders with India.

Why is Pakistan holding back the SAARC?

The squabbling between India and Pakistan has held back SAARC for years, with the two sides' disagreements preventing progress in the consensus-based grouping.Despite a free trade pact in force since 2006, high tariffs and restrictions on movement mean trade among South Asian nations makes up just five percent of their total trade. At the last SAARC Summit, only one agreement on energy cooperation could be signed due to Pakistan's opposition to other planned deals for greater road and rail connectivity.

What was decided at the latest BBIN meeting?

Last week, India hosted such sub-regional meeting inviting officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal to discuss issues related to water resources management, power, generation of hydropower and on to ensure connectivity and transit facilities within the region. The sub-grouping named as BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) agreed to work out a model for power trade and inter-grid connectivity between the four countries. Officials at the ministry of external affairs said the representatives of these nations also agreed to exchange lists of potential future hydropower/power projects to be undertaken jointly on equitable basis.

Significantly, on the issue of connectivity and transit, decided to prepare agreements to enable movement of motor vehicles and railways. "The meeting exchanged ideas on potential cargo (both roads and railways) and bus routes, involving at least three countries in addition to the existing bilateral routes and also agreed to share suggestions in this regard. It was also decided to explore the possibility of using multi-modal transport to meet commercial as well as tourist needs," the MEA officials said. The progress will be reviewed now in Bangladesh in the second half of 2015.

Yup good choice. would love to see more integrated economies and intra regional trade, Pak can go sulk in a corner, they wont progress and they wont let people progress.

Interestingly SL has been left off at this point, perhaps they would be included at a later stage.

 

[Free Karma]

New deal to link South Asian nations in pipeline - Livemint

This one has a few more details.

With Pakistan scuttling an ambitious multilateral agreement to link South Asian nations via road and rail networks, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have come together to stitch together a similar deal to boost regional trade and cultural exchange among themselves. "A meeting was held in New Delhi last week to work out the modalities. We hope to finalise it soon," an official in the ministry of external affairs said on condition of anonymity. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or Saarc, groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Trade among Saarc countries rose 12.36% to $20 billion in 2013-14.

At the 18th Saarc summit held in Kathmandu in November, Pakistan refused to sign the Motor Vehicles Agreement and the Regional Railways Agreement, citing lack of "internal preparations". India is keen on this multimodal connectivity plan, which will give it unhindered access to Afghanistan and central Asian countries. But Pakistan's consent is necessary for connecting Afghanistan. The proposal has now been revived as India looks to improve ties with its eastern neighbours in order to develop its insurgency-riven and economically backward North-East region. At the Kathmandu summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said: "Our relations become stronger when we connect the lives of the ordinary citizens of our countries. That is why connectivity and services by rail and road are so important." Ram Upendra Das, a professor at Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a Delhi-based think tank, said he sees it as a building block towards greater South Asian economic integration. "I hope one day Pakistan will be part of it so that the vision of seamless connectivity between Kabul to Dhaka will be true."

The Saarc Regional Multimodal Transport Study, conducted by the Saarc secretariat in 2005, had recommended multilateral agreements permitting free movement of people, goods and services within the region by road and rail, later endorsed by member countries. A Saarc summit in 2010 endorsed the idea to open up road transport. The summit declared 2010-20 as the decade of intra-regional connectivity in Saarc and agreed to step up negotiations aimed at finalizing deals on motor vehicles and railways. Strengthened rail and road connectivity will not only provide stimulus to economic development in the region as a whole, but also encourage social and cultural contact and promote tourism among member-states.

The rail agreement will enable low-cost, energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable transportation in the region and provide trade and economic links for land-locked countries and semi-isolated regions. The road agreement will lay down the protocol for vehicular traffic movement between Saarc countries for better people-to-people connectivity and cargo movement. The agreement is also supposed to promote Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar (APIBM) transport corridors through a proposed Asian Highway, Trans-Asian Railway and land and sea-routes, which will connect South Asia with South East Asian countries, China, Central Asia and West Asia.

While the multimodal connectivity agreement seeks to open up transport activity across borders in the South Asian region, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing financial assistance to build road and rail networks in the region under the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) programme. SASEC is an initiative to promote economic cooperation between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. In 1996, these four South Asian neighbours formed the South Asian Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ) with the primary objective of accelerating sustainable economic development among them.

Under the programme, ADB and the Indian government would provide around $300 million and $58 million respectively, to complete the projects in about five years. The initiative envisages road links for Panitanki-Fulbari on the Nepal-India-Bangladesh corridor, Jaigaon-Changrabandha on the Bhutan-India-Bangladesh corridor, Imphal-Moreh on the India-Myanmar border, and a bridge across Mechi river along the India-Nepal border. These projects involve construction of 245km of roads. ADB financing for state road projects which are to be converted into national highways in Manipur for connectivity with Myanmar and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries is also being explored for three road stretches.

So it seems like there has been an agreement of sorts for a while to work together. But I hope these are now utilized to the fullest