Cii Charts Course For Boosting Regional Trade

Aimed at increasing intra-regional trade to 10 per cent in the next five years from the present 3 per cent, the Confederation of Indian Industrys (CII) study on economic cooperation among Saarc members envisages multilateral collaboration in the areas of human resource development, agriculture, services, tourism and energy.

The report reflects the recommendations of the various joint task forces set up with counterpart organisations in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

The chamber will initiate similar efforts in Bhutan and Maldives, a release said here yesterday.

With 21 per cent of the world population, the SAARC member countries share similar problems and potential, hence, cooperation in defined sectors would prove to be beneficial to all, the report said.

 

In agriculture, it said, a regional approach to wasteland development is needed as also for developing South Asia as the worlds target production centre for rice, wheat, tea, sugar, cotton and marine products.

It suggested this could be done through demarcating the coastal areas of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Maldives as an aquaculture development zone.

The report said besides setting up a South Asia rice research centre and herbal products research and development centre, a horticulture development zone could be earmarked to cater to northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The paper proposed cooperation in opening branches of banks throughout the region, training, general insurance, export import financing and sharing expertise of financial institutions.

In the financial services sector, mutual fund investment companies, portfolio management, modernisation of stock exchanges and software development for capital market operations, have been earmarked as possible areas of cooperation.

It said the regions infrastructure situation demands concerted action. The areas for cooperation suggested include ports berth construction, development of container terminals and supply of handling development.

To tackle the anomalies in the trading pattern in the region, which has led to balance of payment problems in the past, member countries need to build large export capabilities to ensure intra-regional trade.