Welcome Address by Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP and President FICCI at the “Regional Conference on Deepening South Asian Economic Integration”
24 July, 2008, FICCI, New Delhi

Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Hon’ble Minister of External Affairs, Government of India;
Dr Arjun Sengupta, Member of Parliament & Chairman RIS;
Mr Tariq Sayeed, President, SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry;
Dr Nagesh Kumar, Director General, (RIS);

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Good morning and welcome to the inaugural session of the Regional Conference on Deepening South Asian Economic Integration. It is a pleasure to be speaking here this morning.

FICCI is extremely pleased to be partnering with RIS and SAARC chamber of Commerce for this conference as a pre-cursor to the SAARC summit to be held on August 1-2 2008. The objective of this conference is to define further the economic agenda for this SAARC summit.

Therefore we are delighted to welcome Hon’ble Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Dr Arjun Sengupta, Member of Parliament and Chairman, RIS and Mr. Tariq Sayeed, President, SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry who is carrying forward the agenda of regional economic cooperation in all the SAARC countries. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Hon’ble Minister for his government’s success in Parliament on 22 July, and in particular, his spirited defense of his government in Parliament.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an accepted principle today that economic co-operation and relationship forms the key variable of the often complex equation of relationship between nations and regions. In today’s globalised and competitive world, trade and business have breached national borders, making these conventional borders increasingly irrelevant. From the old days where trade and Ideas were often seen as threats to sovereignty we are in a world today where trade and ideas are increasingly the glue that holds international and bilateral co-operation together. This is particularly true for Asia and other emerging economic countries/blocs where, countries are effectively harnessing the immense power of regional trade and investment to face their challenges of poverty and growth.

South Asia, which is home to all of us, and is home to the largest number of world’s poor unfortunately has not done enough in this department. We are still talking about promotion of trade and economic cooperation in the SAARC region, while in regional entities like ASEAN and EU, regional cooperation has become a strong and robust reality.

The intra SAARC trade is merely 5 per cent in comparison to intra ASEAN trade of 26 per cent and intra EU trade of 55 per cent. The collective trade share of the SAARC region in the world trade is only about 1.8 per cent. This is a very dismal scenario and I would urge the leadership of SAARC to address this situation urgently.

Our Hon’ble Prime Minister said at SAARC Summit, and I quote: “we need to recharge and regenerate the arteries of transport and communication that bind us together and in turn link our region to the rest of Asia to reclaim the prosperity that is undoubtedly our due”.

This is a sentiment I think all of us will agree with.

For SAARC to become more relevant, it must become more economically relevant and everything else including security and other aspects of relationships will flow from that. As a corollary, if SAARC doesn’t become economically relevant in the global scheme of things, the chances are that this will impact its overall relevance as well. SAARC of today is a very different one from when the SAARC was founded. Then we had to depend principally on the western nations as consuming economies, but with the rapid transformation of India into a major global consumption economy and potential growth in coming years of similar consumption economies in other member countries of SAARC, we no longer have to look to the west as the drivers of trade arising out of SAARC.

Let me suggest from FICCIs perspective some ideas for SAARC’s economic agenda to gain traction and critical mass.

• SAARC Energy co-operation for jointly developing and sharing energy resources and infrastructure across the region
• SAARC Food strategy Co-operation for jointly developing and sharing food industry and resources.
• Manufacturing strategy spreading the value chain of our manufacturing and services across the region to maximize efficiency and competitiveness
• Flexible and seamless cross border trade
• Flexible and seamless cross-border investment framework
• Connectivity across the borders through world-class infrastructure linkages – open skies, open roads and open seaways. 

and

• Creating mechanism for sharing capacity, technology and information for governance and public services, healthcare, education and disaster management across the region.
• Economy and security go hand in hand, and there is a need to create a South Asia Regional Security Dialogue – Towards this FICCI is launching an annual forum tentatively called the New Delhi Dialogue from this year on for the success of which we will actively seek the support of Government of India and other SAARC nations.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me end by saying we believe in the idea that is SAARC. It is time for SAARC to assert itself and carve out a sustainable model of economic development and partnership and to face the global challenges and opportunities together. We look forward to the leadership to take the right steps at the forthcoming SAARC Summit for a prosperous, stable and vibrant South Asia.

Thank you