Geography plays Key Role in Sub-regional Identity, Says Amb Sujan R. Chinoy

December 14, 2023

New Delhi:The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) is organising the 15th South Asia Conference on ‘Achieving Regional Economic Integration in South Asia’ on 14-15 December 2023.

In his Welcome Address, Director General, MP-IDSA, Amb Sujan R. Chinoy deliberated upon the important role that geography plays in sub-regional identity. He held that South Asia should explore fresh opportunities and remove impediments in the path of regional economic integration. The region should work together to evolve the right frameworks for improving intra-regional trade and commerce, he added.

Amb Chinoy said that economic integration in South Asia can help the region deal with common challenges of food, fuel, energy and financial disruptions more effectively, and better economic integration would also help the region align together to improve healthcare and raise literacy and skilling standards for its peoples.

Speaking further, he said that the pace of regional economic integration is faster and more beneficial to all participants wherever there is a large economy at the centre of such endeavours. South Asia has India as a nucleus. India is now the world’s fastest growing economy and already the fifth-largest, and can act as a fulcrum of regional growth and development.

Describing robust intra-regional trade, investment, financial and human resource flows as essential factors for global growth and prosperity, Amb Chinoy said that the process of globalisation has however, frayed in recent years on account of major power contestation. A weakened multilateral system, particularly a dysfunctional WTO, and underperforming MDBs and IFIs, do not bode well for global growth. In the case of South Asia, intra-South Asian trade is only 5 per cent, whereas intra-ASEAN trade stands at 25 per cent, he stated.

Amb Chinoy cautioned against the threat of terrorism, including the use of territory to host radical and fundamental terrorist groups to destabilise others in South Asia. Terrorism disrupts economic life. It affects FDI flows. It affects confidence around the world in Brand South Asia, he noted.

Foreign Secretary, Government of India, Shri Vinay Kwatra delivered the Inaugural Address and Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, Shri Dammu Ravi delivered a Special Address.

The South Asia Conference series, which commenced in 2007, has acquired a unique stature as an important Track II initiative, bringing together academics, experts, policy makers, practitioners and media representatives from India’s neighbouring countries in a common endeavour to deepen mutual understanding and cooperation on issues of mutual interest and concern.

A cross-section of experts, analysts, and policymakers from Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bhutan have been invited to discuss Regional economic integration in sub-geographies and suggest way forward in this year’s Conference.