India and six other South Asian countries has pledged to improve intra-regional connectivity to boost trade and tourism as they eye $70 billion incremental GDP and 20 million jobs by 2025.
Finance ministers of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar met on April 3rd to reshape the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC), which was originally founded 16 years ago by four nations - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Other countries joined in subsequently.
Sharing his thoughts on this Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "Our collective vision is for SASEC to power Asia in the 21st century, sustaining growth that synergises the growth of the natural resources of the sub-region, industry and infrastructure potential through the enhanced cooperation. This can possibly generate incremental $70 billion GDP and 20 million employment annually by 2025."
The seven nations looking to leverage natural resources-based industries, promote industry-to-industry links and bolster connectivity to boost trade and tourism.
"We believe that these synergies can generate annually an estimated $70 billion in incremental GDP and 20 million in incremental aggregate employment by 2025," it said.
The member countries came out with the SASEC Vision, a new strategic road map to guide the sub-region's development through 2025, which was announced after the meeting of the finance ministers of the seven nations.
"To further align and focus our interventions, we adopted the SASEC Operational Plan, 2016-25, which defines the strategic objectives and operational priorities in transport, trade facilitation and energy as well as for economic corridor development," said the joint statement issued after the meeting of the finance ministers.
The SASEC vision for 2025 reflects member nations' commitment to tap into latent industrial demand and promote sub-regional industry-to-industry links.
The road map is expected to guide SASEC members in developing gateways and hubs to expand trade and commerce, which can help achieve the long-term goal.
The joint statement said SASEC takes pride in significant gains achieved over the past 16 years, especially in transport, trade facilitation and energy.
"Infrastructure connectivity has improved our countries' access to key markets and gateway ports and improved prospects for participation in regional and global value chains," said the declaration.
SASEC nodal officials have been asked to undertake necessary consultations on the potential synergies identified by the vision document with a view to formulating a road map for implementation of the vision.
The countries noted that road connectivity projects in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal will strengthen trans-border trade and India and Nepal exploring pilot project for an electronic cargo tracking system will improve transit facilitation.
Stating that the endeavour is to make South Asia the economic powerhouse of Asia, the joint statement read: "Our investments in infrastructure will reach not only to trade gateways, but to the hinterlands to help improve people's access to economic opportunities, increase productivity and variety of the goods and services, and provide them with better access to social services.
BW Reporters
The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld. He primarily covers Retail, Media & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism sectors
