Shot in arm for regional cooperation

Coming close on the heels of the recent limited over Cricket World Cup, which brought together a number of countries of South Asia, besides some outside this region, in a spirit of exemplary camaraderie and gamesmanship, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s current official visit to Bangladesh is proof that the Lankan state is desirous of extending this warmth to the vital area of regional economic cooperation and other spheres which impact substantially on the development prospects of South Asia.

As our initial report indicated yesterday, a number of mutually-beneficial bilateral agreements would be signed between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka during the Lankan President’s visit and this is sure enough proof that economic and material compulsions are figuring prominently in the fostering and sustenance of amity between the countries. There is no disputing that in today’s world, ‘economics are driving politics’ as never before and that economic relations are playing a pivotal role in building bridges among countries.

Accordingly, it should not come as a surprise that countries of this region, such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which favour pragmatism as the cornerstone of their economic policies, are making every effort to step-up bilateral economic cooperation. These are economies that are showing every sign of growing and nothing could be more natural, in this context, than for them to stress bilateral cooperation in their respective development thrusts.

It need hardly be mentioned that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are key members of the eight member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In fact Bangladesh is the birth place of SAARC and the first SAARC Heads of State and Government Summit was held in Dhaka in 1985. Since then, SAARC has endeavoured strongly to make regional cooperation in a multiplicity of spheres a reality, but it could be argued that strong bilateral ties could act as an impetus to this cooperative effort.

As we see it, the task before SAARC is to break-down barriers to regional cooperation and to continually explore the means of fulfilling each others material and economic needs with the expectation of developing as a collectivity. Sri Lanka’s bilateral ties with Bangladesh should be seen as part of this process of fostering collective economic security. That is, exploiting economic complementarities between countries systematically, could be a stepping stone to individual and collective material empowerment. The underlying logic in this thinking is that collective well being would be facilitated greatly by strong individual economies.

It needs to be pointed out in this context that the vastly growing Lankan economy could be a strong catalyst in regional economic integration and growth. Over the past few years, Sri Lanka has emerged as a success story in economic development in South Asia and many are the ways in which she could help in boosting regional development through the establishment of strong economic links with her neighbours. Having earned for herself the status of a Middle Income Country, she could share her economic expertise and resources with her neighbours with a view to enhancing regional economic advancement.

It is against this backdrop that the Lankan President’s Bangladesh visit needs to be assessed. It is the veritable extension of a hand of friendship and cooperation to a neighbour who has proved a very good friend over the years. Like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh has also found it advisable to follow a liberal economic policy and there are numerous lessons in development which the two countries could share. Nevertheless, both countries have preserved their welfare policies and connected institutions in their essentials and are today object lessons to a degree, in combining growth with equity. In other words, economic pragmatism, as mentioned, is their guiding principle in the development sphere.

It is time for the countries of this region to look beyond their narrow geographical boundaries to the booming economies beyond their borders. Countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have done well to combine growth with a measure of equity but a closer tie-up with the Indian and Chinese economies, for instance, would enable them to redouble their respective growth drives.

This needs to be done on a systematic basis, since it is now realized that the growth centres of the global economy have shifted to East Asia, that is, our part of the world. However, they would need to dialogue closely with their more prosperous and powerful neighbours to ensure that iniquities and anomalies do not creep into their economic ties with the latter.

While Sri Lanka has proved to be a democratic state with a welfarist backbone over the years, Bangladesh has made considerable strides in democratic development. It is clear that neither state is currently sacrificing democracy for development. This is one of the reasons why we are unlikely to see current Middle East type political turmoil in either of the countries. It is only fitting, therefore, that they keep their bilateral relationship flourishing because none could deny them their role model status for other developing countries.