PM moots Saarc economic bloc

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh endorsed here today the need for an economic union of member countries belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc).

Terming the proposed South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) as a step in the right direction, Singh listed four key imperatives in order to exploit its full potential.

"We need to complete the process of Safta expeditiously, complement it by a Saarc Investment Area and move on to deepen it further by forming a Customs Union and then gradually to an economic union," he said.

Singh was inaugurating the lecture-cum-seminar series programme organised by the Chandigarh-based Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) in memory of its first chairman, PN Haksar, a bureaucrat and diplomat who served in the Prime Minister's Office during Indira Gandhi's tenure.

The prime minister devoted much of his 40-minute speech to outlining his vision of a vibrant Saarc, that derived its sustenance from the natural inter-dependency of all the members of the region to strengthen collective security and secure the region's collective prosperity.

Coming as it did just days before the start of the Saarc Summit meeting in Dhaka later this week, Singh's speech touched upon the key elements of what looked like the Indian government's position paper at the forthcoming Saarc Summit.

He also suggested that Saarc could evolve a forum for annual meetings of economic or industry ministers to facilitate discussion on exploitation of complementarities in their economies. Similarly, a common Saarc transport policy could be evolved to facilitate movement of goods across the region and a South Asian energy dialogue could be instituted to promote regional co-operation in the area of energy.

Expressing the hope that Safta would treble intra-regional trade on a conservative estimate, Singh said the limited experience with trade liberalisation within the framework of South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement or bilateral free trade agreements was already beneficial for trade and investment flows.

In this context, he mentioned many positive economic benefits of India's bilateral free trade agreements with Sri Lanka and Nepal. For instance, Sri Lanka had already sought to expand the scope of the FTA with India to cover investments and services.

"The time has come for a new vision, a new commitment and a new sense of purpose in South Asia", he said and hoped that the member countries had the political will and wisdom to seize the moment.

Earlier, organisers of CRRID spoke about the contribution of Haksar in setting up the institution. The prime minister also spoke about Haksar, who in his words was a remarkable civil servant and diplomat who had a deep understanding of the world as well as of our complex polity.