'Switch On The Engine Of South Asian Growth'

Since we launched our reforms in early1990s, India has recorded an average annual growth rate of over 6%. It is now the world’s fourth largesteconomy on the basis of Purchasing Power Parity. Our external reserves have exceeded USD 100 billion and aretoday the sixth largest in the world. Our foreign trade is growing at double-digit rates. We are rapidlyreducing our external debt. There is strong business confidence and a ‘feel good’ factor across oureconomy, buoyed by recent successes notched up by our services as well as manufacturing sector. Our reservesof food stock stands at over 30 million tonnes. Starting from scratch a few years ago, Indian software exportshave reached USD 10 billion per annum. Our determined thrust for infrastructure modernization emphasizesbuilding of roads, ports, increase in power generation etc. The Indian economy comprises a strong and growingmiddle class of 300 million people with rapidly increasing purchasing power.

The central message, which India therefore brings to the SAARC Summit, is that we must set aside all oursuspicions of each other wherever they exist and switch on the engine of South Asian growth in order to travelon the road to prosperity. This task brooks no further delay.

In the globalised world of today,collective regional endeavour is an expression of enlightened self-interest for any country. If only we wouldpermit regional stability and cooperation to empower the poor of our countries, the extraordinary productiveenergies of the one and a half billion people of this region will be set free for the grand march of oureconomic and social development.

There is today consensus that the enhancement of public good requires coordinated multilateral action andbelief in overlapping fortunes. Across the world, economic security has become the driving motivation forregional and trans-regional cooperation. Nations are increasingly focused on evolving strategies that willhelp adapt their economies to world markets and to trans-national economic flows. There is universalrecognition that this is best done if countries act as a region rather than as individual economies.

In a world where democracy is an universal value, enhancing the quality of life of the people has to be theforemost priority for Governments. Greater regional cooperation enables the creation of mutual stakes in eachother’s prosperity and, in the process, creates an environment conducive to the resolution of politicaldifferences that may exist. Most countries today recognize the fact that hostility and tension would disrupttheir economies, trade and overall wealth aggregation. We too, in South Asia, must recognize this fact.

We should accept the realities of the present world order and identify the objectives of cooperativeeconomic security, as many regional groupings are doing. This will require that we do nothing to undermineeach other’s security. Our goal of economic security for the region can be achieved only if we exchangeinformation, investment, technology, know-how, and business opportunities and, thereby, reinforce ourdevelopmental agenda.

We all know that foreign investors prefercountries where the economic fundamentals are strong. Reference is often made to factors such as currencystability, adequate infrastructure, size of market, and the labour situation. But even more fundamental toforeign investment is the security environment. There has to be domestic as well as regional peace andstability. Enduring tension will benefit none of us.

In fact, the peace dividend, in today’s globalised context, is more than just the additional domesticavailability of resources. It also includes the innumerable regional collaboration opportunities that becomeavailable. We also, thereby, become far less vulnerable to global economic shocks and downturns.

There are perhaps no readymade solutions to what has kept us from coming together for so many decades. Butto pawn our future to despair is no option either. We have all seen how the limited resumption of businessexchanges and people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan has already contributed to the rise of anew optimism in our region. We must preserve and accelerate such steps across the subcontinent. They can helpresolve our differences in a way that old hostility or new distrust never can. Peace is in everybody’s selfinterest. We only need the courage of conviction and the determination to seek peace in the face of allnegative persuasions and blandishments.

If we do not provide legitimate avenuesfor commercial interaction, then illegitimate channels come into operation. Decades of tension have resultedin predatory economic structures based on illegal cross-border activities including smuggling, narcotics, armstrafficking and support to disaffected terrorist and insurgent groups. The people who have become wealthythrough this criminalised economy fund and sustain divisiveness in order to inhibit regular economic andsocial exchanges. This has to be put an end to. A more participatory involvement in legitimate, cross-bordereconomic exchanges has to be promoted so that the peace economy triumphs over the nefarious one.

SAARC processes, particularly our negotiations on free trade, must make greater headway. A liberal tradetreaty with India has significantly narrowed Nepal’s trade deficit with us. India’s Free Trade Agreementwith Sri Lanka, signed in 2001, led to an increase in Sri Lanka’s exports to India by around 137% in justone year. The success of the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement has inspired us to expand its scope to coverservices and investment in a comprehensive economic partnership agreement. These examples show that we mustdiscard the myth of asymmetries in economies inhibiting smaller countries from benefiting from closer economicintegration within South Asia.

We have assets that few regions have. Wehave a demographic advantage in our young populations. They are the mainstay of our human resources. Ourpeople have impressed global corporate corridors with their technical, financial and managerial expertise.Their energies and talents must also be given application in regional cooperative enterprises. Ourtechnological advances have put us at the vanguard of today’s Knowledge Economy. The size and increasingpurchasing power of our collective market creates economies of scale. The rich diversity of our bio-resources– in the Himalayan region and elsewhere – are yet to be exploited for our common benefit. We can have acommon network of financial institutions in the banking and insurance sectors. We can look at education,health and housing sectors, which will fling open huge markets to businesses in all our countries.Intra-regional investment flows also have great potential.

Let us think then of a comprehensive regional economic partnership. South Asia has vast untappedcapacities for hydropower and unexploited hydrocarbons, which can more than meet its huge energy deficit.Nepal and Bhutan today have an estimated potential of 100,000 MW of environmentally clean hydropower. Theyneed to create wealth for their societies by profitably selling these energy resources. The hydroelectricprojects in Bhutan illustrate this dramatically. Bhutan’s per capita income of USD 600 per annum today isexpected to double by the end of 2005, when just one project, the 1020 MW Tala power plant is completed.

The optimum management of our water resources for irrigation, navigation and flood control can similarlyhave a multiplier effect on infrastructure, development and growth in our entire region. This requires notonly financial investments, but also maturity of policy.

Friends, India is willing to move forwardrapidly with a South Asia strategy that will help the economic integration of the subcontinent. Let us createsofter and safer national boundaries so that the region becomes an economic area that offers profitable,competitive and enriching partnerships to all of us. We can collaboratively create an alliance for an affluentand amicable Subcontinent. In the past, by fragmenting our people and our markets, we have allowed ourselvesto realize only a fraction of our worth. A South Asia with one currency, one tariff regime and free movementof goods, services and people is well within the realm of possibility.

We can also look at innovative trilateral arrangements across regions. We have concluded a number of freetrade arrangements with many countries of Asia. During my recent visit to Iran, I proposed to the Iranianleadership that India, Iran and Pakistan could form a common market to work together and provide new economicopportunities to the people of the three countries. Later, we could even extend this partnership to includeAfghanistan, Central Asia and the Gulf countries to form one huge common market.

Pakistan, with its unique geographical position at the confluence of the Sub-Continent, the Persian Gulfand Central Asia can play an invaluable bridge role in connecting an energy-hungry India with its boomingmarkets to those of Central Asia, West Asia and the Gulf. If Pakistan can find within itself the strength andwisdom to change its current approach towards India, there are immense benefits that it can derive as atransit route for the movement of energy, goods and people. We could then very well see this entire regionrise on the tide of regional cooperation as has happened in the case of ASEAN.

India is proud of its achievements andconfident of the future. At the same time, we are also clear that if we want to secure this future, ourneighbours must become full partners in our economic progress. We wish to purposefully move forward, and movetogether. It is for this reason, that I have been advocating quick progress towards a South Asian Union. Ifother regions could achieve this kind of Union, despite political, social and economic differences, there isno reason why we should deprive our people of this opportunity.

Friends, the size, population and the success of India, whether it be in the economic field or thepolitical and social field, is a reality that should not be held against us. It should be seen as an advantagethat can be leveraged for the benefit of all of India’s smaller neighbours. India has no desire but to beable to build economic relations aimed at mutual benefit. There are a number of asymmetries in SAFTA. We arequite clear that bigger nations will have to make concessions to smaller nations and such asymmetries areessential to take everyone together. Whatever strengths we have built over the years in terms of technology,in terms of human resource development and capacities, we are prepared to put at the disposal of ourneighbours in South Asia.

I would like to conclude by extending mygood wishes to all of you in the SAARC Chamber. I hope that your networked determination will make you apowerful steering centre for regional integration. I call upon you to create a dense web of contacts amongSouth Asian businessmen and serve as a key bellwether for the Governments of the region on a wide range ofeconomic issues. You have an important role to play in encouraging the people and the Governments of theregion to think and act regional, beyond the zero-sum bilateral bedevilments that have plagued us so far. I amconfident that you will play this role effectively and in the process, articulate the true voice of SouthAsia.