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Journalism of Courage
A week before the beginning of the SAARC summit, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh mooted the expansion of SAARC as a regional trade bloc and an economic union.
Expressing his happiness at the arrival of South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), Singh described it as ‘‘the first step in the evolution of SAARC as a regional trade bloc and an economic union’’. Regional economic integration is more about finding an engine of growth rather than just promoting trade, he said.
Coming a few days before the SAARC summit, his remarks seemed a tactic to set the agenda for the talks and pre-empt any move to derail the process of regional economic union.
Citing the examples of EU, ASEAN Free Trade Area and proposed Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA), the PM stressed that India’s neighbours must see it as a land of opportunity. He also identified the fight against terrorism and poverty as ‘‘indivisible’’, stating that no country can pretend that some one’s terrorists could be some one else’s freedom fighter.
Attempting to allay fears of India being the big brother, the Prime Minister cited instances of benefits accrued by Sri Lanka and Nepal from bilateral trade agreements with India. ‘‘The lesson from recent experiences of regional economic integration in South Asia is that smaller and poorer countries benefit more as their trade becomes more balanced’’, Dr Manmohan Singh said.He cited the case of EU where countries with lower income level like Spain, Portugal and Greece have benefited from economic integration.
Delivering the inaugural address at the P N Haskar Memorial Conference at the Centre for Resarch in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), an institute which he once headed, Dr Singh remarked that South Asia shares boundaries and civilisation roots.
‘‘The two recent natural disasters, tsunami last year and the recent earthquake have proved that even nature has ordained it so’’, he added.
Describing SAFTA as a forerunner of deeper economic integration in the region, the PM cited two examples, one of Sri Lanka and the other of Nepal.
In Sri Lanka, an Indian tyre company has set up a large export-oriented plant to take advantage of local supply of natural rubber. Today, India is the third largest investor in the island. Indian consumer goods companies have invested in Nepal, resulting in the same items becoming the most important exports to India.
