Bilateral FTAs in South Asia: Recasting the Regionalism Debate

The slow pace of progress of the South Asian regional trade integration process under SAARC has prompted many countries to seek bilateral agreements. Sri Lanka is a casein point with bilateral agreements with both India and Pakistan. While the former is acknowledged to have yielded positive results, the latter hasremained of limited interest. Given that India remains the single most important trading partner for almost all other South Asian countries, regionalism in South Asia essentially entails bilateral market access to India. The current evidence suggests that India has attempted to do so via a host of bilateral and regional arrangements, but that the emerging nature of that integration process is unlikely to be an ‘inclusive’ South Asian regional grouping.