By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
Despite Modi highlighting South Asia’s problems at the SAARC summit, SAARC fails to progress.
This year’s long-awaited South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meeting kicked off in Kathmandu, Nepal on Wednesday. This year’s summit is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first SAARC meeting and it has been eagerly anticipated. This is because Modi and other South Asian regional leaders have been pushing to make SAARC actually relevant by advocating for regional cooperation and trade.
In fact, Modi highlighted both the problems and promise of South Asia during his speech on Wednesday. Speaking about his region, Modi said:
Today, less than 5 percent of the region’s global trade takes place between us. Even at this modest level, less than 10 percent of the region’s internal trade takes place under SAARC Free Trade Area. Indian companies are investing billions abroad, but less than 1 percent flows into our region. It is still harder to travel within our region than to Bangkok or Singapore; and, more expensive to speak to each other.
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