Regional cooperation arrangements (RCAs) have produced vastly dissimilar performances; some have spurred remarkable expansion in trade and cooperation among members, while several others have achieved little. Studies show that performances vary because RCAs differ from one another in important...

Recent developments in South Asian countries, especially the re-emergence of democratic governments, new growth momentum despite the global economic downturn and greater openness, warrant a fresh look at the region's prospects for economic integration. On the basis of a thorough review of the...

Globalization polarized the world and made international trade very competitive. Each and every country is trying to exploit whatever trade opportunities are available. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) contracting countries are facing various barriers to trade promotion. Due to bureaucratic...

In recent decades, Southeast Asian economies have prospered through an outward-oriented strategy, through intra-regional integration under the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initiative and through participating in the East Asian production networks. In the 1970-80ś, South...

Energy security affects national security as well as the availability, extraction, and utilization of natural resources like water, agriculture land, and mining resources. Therefore, energy security is a nation's ability to meet the energy needs of its inhabitants uninterruptedly at an...

As Globalisation and regionalism gained its momentum from the beginning of 1980s and the gain from open trade is realised by the pioneer East Asian nations (especially, the ASEAN countries), the South Asian countries also tried to catch up with the stream under the banner of South Asian...

The regional organization, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), was established in Dhaka on December 8, 1985. In the Organisation, there were initially seven-Member States that are mainly located in South Asia, i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and...

Though South Asia covers 4,488,300 sq kms of the world's surface area with a population of 1.5 billion, still it has only a negligible share of the world's total volume of trade. Most of the people of this region are living below the poverty line. Only mutual initiatives towards economic...