Strengthening Trade Regionalism Under SAARC

The regional integration amongst the SAARC nations is marred by numerous bottlenecks which have completely plagued its growth. These bottlenecks range from chronic security concern, military rivalry, economic nationalism and mutual distrust of every member against one or the other. The parochial attitude of various political parties from across the region, hate mongering and mutual distrust disguised as the economic non-complementarity have always been the cause of the lack of the success of SAARC as a regional cooperation organisation. It must be recognised that the SAARC region is highly interwoven by the web of overlapping and shared culture, ethnicity, history and geographical endowment including common rivers, mountains and ecology. The whole region is destined together, and it can rise and fall together. Any political, economic and social problem in any one of the member nations will have repercussions on other member/s, and there is no immunity from it. The ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policy is a mediaeval idea, and it would not be good for any nation in SAARC if its neighbour is bleeding and suffers from governance anarchy.