Make South Asia an economic powerhouse: Vajpayee
Monday, 05 January 2004, 20:30 IST
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ISLAMABAD: Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sunday called for making South Asia an "economic powerhouse in the world", saying it only needed political will to make that happen. "We have to change South Asia's image and standing in the world. We must make the bold transition from mistrust to trust, from discord to concord, and from tension to peace," Vajpayee, 79, the elder statesman of the region, said in his address at the inaugural session of the 12th SAARC summit at the Convention Centre in the Pakistani capital. He urged the region's countries to set aside their political differences to build a strong South Asia to give a better deal to its 1.5 billion people. "The bonds of religion, language, ethnicity and culture, which hold us together as a South Asian family are far more enduring than the relatively recent barriers of political prejudice that we have erected," Vajpayee said. He said the region had rich and diverse natural and human resources and "a rational exploitation of these shared resources, with equal benefit to all stakeholders, can take us a long way towards real integration of South Asian economies". "We have to learn appropriate lessons from the experience of other countries," he said. "After centuries of fratricidal conflicts and wars, Europe is now uniting to emerge as the world's most powerful economic grouping. "Closer home, the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) countries have found it possible not to allow their political problems to come in the way of economic cooperation." Vajpayee then went on to describe similar coming together of countries in Africa, South America and the Caribbean. "All these examples remind us that rational economics should triumph over political prejudice in South Asia," he said. The Indian prime minister, making his first visit to Pakistan in nearly five years, called for freer movement of people across the SAARC region. "We have to create more opportunities for free commercial interaction between us," he said. "The development of greater economic stakes in each other would naturally result in greater sensitivity to the concerns of each other. This would pave the way for the more ambitious - but entirely achievable - goals such as a Free Trade Area, an Economic Union, open borders and a common currency for our region." Keeping the focus of his address firmly on economic cooperation and development in the region, Vajpayee also urged transformation of societies of SAARC countries into "knowledge economies" and said India was prepared to share its experiences with other SAARC countries in this area as a digital divide between and within the region's countries could retard development and raise social tensions. Saying that the benefits of SAARC have not yet touched the lives of ordinary people, Vajpayee called for the setting up of a dedicated Task Force, based in India, to implement the work of poverty alleviation in the region, as enumerated by the Independent Commission on Poverty Alleviation. He also proposed a Poverty Alleviation Fund to fund poverty mitigation in member countries and said India was willing to make an initial contribution of $100 million to this fund. This money, he clarified, could be used entirely on projects within SAARC, but outside India. Vajpayee sought free movement of people across the SAARC region but with sufficient strong controls to prevent illegal migration - obviously keeping in mind the huge inflow of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh into the eastern and northeastern states of India.
Source: IANS
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