Speakers at South Asia Economic Summit on Wednesday called for building
greater synergies between Asean and Saarc to benefit from each other's
experiences to achieve the goal of inclusive development in South Asia.
Speaking at plenary session on
'Outlook of South Asia in Post Economic Crisis', World Bank's Chief Economist
Kalpana Kochar said that the centre of gravity of global economy was now
shifting to Asia, thus creating a space for Asian nations to benefit from this
paradigm shift.
Nagaish Kumar of Unescap said
South Asia could gain from the potential of economic development in the region
by building synergies with Asean's best practices and economic and development
modelling. Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Nadeemul Haque stressed
the need for adopting changing drivers of economic growth, one of which was to
encourage entrepreneurship.
Speakers at the session on food
security and regional agricultural trade highlighted the need to look at
regional trade with a food security lens as 40% of the world's hungry population
lived in South Asia. Deputy Regional Director Oxfam GB Asia Cherian Mathews was
of the view that there was a link between investing in agriculture and food
security. He said Oxfam had been undertaking its 'Grow' campaign to advocate
for an enabling environment wherein food security was ensured amid all sorts of
market pressures.
Khondaker Golam Moazzem of
Bangladesh's Centre for Policy Dialogue said that governments of the South
Asian region needed to analyse factors changing the sector both internally and
externally. Other panellists, including Pradeep Kumar Shrestha from Nepal and
Bhim Raj Gurung from Bhutan, agreed that regional co-operation was essential to
ensure food security but it was also essential to incorporate into national
policies.
Annisul Huq of Bangladesh
concluded that growth of regional trade had bleak chances unless the tiresome
visa process was relaxed and governments become less conservative to trade. In
the session on Regional Trade Agreements in South Asia, Pradeep Mehta from CUTS
International called for placing binding commitments to existing free trade
agreements such as Safta. He urged South Asian governments to enhance
government to government, business to business and people to people relations
for effective implementation of free trade agreements.
Dr Saman Kelegama from Sri Lanka
said South Asia had the highest cost for inter-regional trade by comparison
with other regions in the world. Three fourth of the Saarc trade potential was
not being utilised because of non-tariff barriers, he added. Sonam Tashi of
Bhutan's Ministry of Economic Affairs highlighted the need to increase chances
of connecting at the highest level of decision making if free trade agreements
were to be effectively implemented. Experts at panel on Regional Energy
Co-operation lamented that around 289 million people in India, 96 million in
Bangladesh and 64 million in Pakistan were without access to electricity.
The session recommended
inter-state energy co-operation, joint techno-economic evaluation of opportunities
along with the support and participation of multiple stakeholders. Deepti
Mahajan of India's Energy Research Institute said 'energy resources were
concentrated in one country while capabilities to explore those resources were
in other. "Hence optimal utilisation of unequally distributed resources is
the need of hour," she said.
Speaking on panel 'Food Security
Challenges' Sumith Nakandala of Sri Lanka's Ministry of External Affairs
suggested forming a consortium of scientists to increase food production to
overcome alarming food insecurity. SDPI's Shakeel Ramay said that as food
security was a multifaceted issue, it was pertinent to engage sociologists,
economists, researchers, anthropologists to address the issues.
M Syeduzzaman, a former finance
minister of Bangladesh, chaired the session and recommended that South Asian
countries should fully support initiatives in agriculture, regional water
sharing and improved regional connectivity. Dr David Orden of US called for
revisiting initial goals to match the ever changing reality of South Asia's
economy.
In the session on Regional
Co-operation on Water Dr Saeed Shafqat of Foreman Christian College talked on
the Indus Water Treaty, saying that mistrust between India and Pakistan could
lead to serious issues both at national and international level.
Divas Basynat of Nepal's
Development Research Institute stressed the need for giving equal importance to
hydrological and geographical context, besides focusing on engineering
solutions. The session on Climate Change discussed effects of climate change on
economy, agriculture, health and environment. It was observed that climate
change was causing a decrease in agricultural production which was triggering
internal migrations across various regions.
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