Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Was this content written or created while at IBA?

Yes

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

9-8-2011

Author Affiliation

  • Dr. Ishrat Husain is Dean and Director at Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

Conference Name

South Asia Forum

Conference Location

New Delhi

Conference Dates

September 8, 2011

Series

Faculty Research - Book Chapters and Conference Papers

First Page

1

Last Page

8

Keywords

South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), Regional cooperation, India–Pakistan economic relations, Trade policy in South Asia

Abstract / Description

This paper is divided in two parts:- (a) What the countries in South Asia should do individually? (b) What these countries should do collectively? Most of the rhetoric on regional economic cooperation has been on the collective responsibility. It is my contention that the pre-requisite for collective action and successful outcome is the individual actions that have to be taken by each country in the region. It would be inconceivable to think of identical or uniform policy actions or institutional changes across the region. India is so vastly different from Bhutan or Maldives. These policy and institutional changes have to be embedded in the initial factor endowments, domestic economic, political, social and cultural environment of the concerned country and its weight in the regional economy. The relevance of each policy measure may also vary from country to country. Other policies may be needed but are not analyzed in this paper. The larger point is that to pave the way for Regional Economic Cooperation, prior actions have to be taken by each member country. We have to move from advocacy to analysis to action.

Download

Share

COinS