Unlock talent of South Asia: Swaraj

Swaraj stated that while the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries are doing well individually, they have not been able to unleash their collective strength effectively.

“We have taken some important decisions to integrate our economies through SAFTA and South Asian Trade in Services Agreement. These need to be developed and consolidated further if we are to achieve a South Asian Economic Union,” she said in her address at the 37th SAARC Council of Ministers meeting here.

Underlining that the South Asian region is hailed today as having the potential to be the front-runner of growth and prosperity and is one of the fastest growing regions of the world, she pointed out that regional integration is lacking. “The statistics are telling: our region accounts for merely 2 per cent of world trade and 1.7 per cent of world FDI. Our intra-regional trade is less than 6 per cent of our global trade and intra-regional FDI accounts for only 3 per cent of total FDI inflows,” she said. 

Swaraj said that despite strong growth and huge advances in education, healthcare and rural development, the SAARC region still has the world’s largest number of people living below the poverty line.

Swaraj said connectivity is central to regional development and will determine how “we meet our goals of growth, employment and prosperity”.

“As we seek to overcome basic problems of physical connectivity, it is important for us to move forward quickly on pending agreements on rail and motor vehicles. Economic activities, cultural connections and people to people contacts will flow naturally from such connectivity,” she said.

“Our vision of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas ’ is for the whole SAARC region and together, we can create a viable ecosystem of regional integration, cooperation and socio-economic development,” she said adding that together, “we can unlock the latent talent of South Asia”.