Bangladesh’s economic rise and the imperative of S. Asian cooperation

Bangladesh has emerged as the country to watch over the past two decades in South Asia. No longer could it be regarded as being among the underdeveloped countries of the world and a recent address in Colombo by its Foreign Minister Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen laid out the reasons why this is so.

‘Today, Bangladesh is acknowledged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. We have reduced poverty from 41.5% to 20% in the last 14 years. Our per capita income has tripled in just a decade. Bangladesh has fulfilled all criterions for graduating from an LDC to a developing country. Bangladesh is ranked as the world’s 5th best COVID resilient country, and South Asia’s best performer, Dr. Momen said in the course of delivering the Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Lecture 2023 at the BMICH on February 3. The lecture titled, ‘Shared Prosperity: A Vision for South Asia’, was hosted by The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies, Colombo.

Bangladesh’s rise to economic prowess in South Asia has been consistent over the years and the centrality the country has been attaching to democratic development could be considered as having contributed in no small measure towards its progress. Its foreign policy complements its domestic policy appropriately and there is no doubt that the prime focus Bangladesh attaches to its founding father, Bangabandhu Shiekh Mujibur Rahman’s principle of ‘Friendship to all, Malice to None’, has been instrumental in garnering for itself the good will of the international community. The latter policy, it could be argued, has been of some importance in ushering the degree of economic dynamism the country is currently experiencing. For instance today, Bangladesh has no difficulty in winning the confidence of global financial agencies, if and when it needs their assistance.

This policy backdrop would need to be borne in mind when taking note of some of the observations the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister made about Sri Lanka’s late and widely respected Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar P.C. (LK) at the beginning of his address. It could be said that the latter’s political values in particular drew an empathetic response from the speaker. Dr. Momen said: ‘His (LK’s) assassination was one of the most tragic losses for the country. However, we are confident that Lakshman Kadirgamar will be remembered by future generations of Sri Lankans for the values and principles he lived and died for which are even more relevant in present-day Sri Lanka.’

Regional cooperation was a prime theme of the Bangladesh Foreign Minister’s address and very rightly so. It ought to be of interest to the world that it was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who stressed the need for SAARC most articulately in the region in the organization’s formative years in the late seventies and early eighties. In fact, the first SAARC Summit was held in Bangladesh in 1985 in deference to the role Bangladesh played in its establishment.

Unfortunately, SAARC is today veritably dysfunctional but that does not detract from its importance to South Asia’s development. However, there is no doubt that those who mean well by South Asia would be hoping for SAARC’s revival sooner rather than later.

As could be seen, the continuing stresses in Indo-Pakistan relations in particular have been taking a huge toll on the regional cooperation process. The more effective management of the friction in Indo-Pakistani ties could go some distance in reviving SAARC and making it workable for the region’s benefit. Referring to the factors getting in the way of regional cooperation, Foreign Minister Momen said: ‘Regional cooperation within the existing frameworks has made only limited progress being hostage to political and security considerations. The problems have their roots in the historical baggage as well as the existing disparity in the regional structure.’

Countries of the region articulating forcefully the need for a sharing and caring culture among the SAARC Eight, such as Bangladesh, it is hoped, would take on themselves the task of healing the friction and antagonistic relations among SAARC countries in a bid to reviving the organization’s fortunes.

Indeed, getting rid of cumbrous ‘historical baggage’ in Indo-Pakistani ties in particular is central to putting SAARC back on its feet and the ample good will reflected by Bangladesh towards the region would stand it in good stead in this challenging undertaking.

However, as important as managing intra-SAARC antagonisms is the organization’s need to work out ways of promoting economic cooperation among its member states. This challenge has largely gone unaddressed over the decades. As Dr. Momen pointed out, one reason for this failure is the tendency among the region’s countries to seek greater economic integration with the rest of the world than among themselves.

The problem is highly complex and one way out of this drawback is for the SAARC Eight to explore afresh the economic complementarities among them. The current growing global economic turmoil ought to compel SAARC to renew its efforts in the direction of greater regional cooperation, and looking for economic complementarities and other forms of material inter-dependence could provide one effective answer to the region’s more or less stalled cooperation efforts.

Fortunately, though, Bangladesh has taken cognizance of these needs. In the words of Momen: ‘To maximize our intra and extra-regional trade potentials and enhance people-to-people contacts, Bangladesh is committed to regional and sub-regional connectivity initiatives.’ One of the challenges before Bangladesh and the rest of SAARC is to look at ways of bolstering intra-regional economic relations so as to further the development of South Asia as a whole.

South Asia, moreover, is not short of research studies that could help in the above undertakings. There is, for example, a collection of academic papers in book form titled, ‘India, China and Sub-regional Connectivities in South Asia’, edited by D. Suba Chandran and Bhavna Singh (SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd, published 2015) which could prove most invaluable to policy and decision-makers in this region. These papers bolster the case made by Bangladesh for greater intra-regional economic connectivities, among other matters of importance.

The book ends on the following note which South Asia could ignore only at its peril: ‘The role of regional institutions such as South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation (BCIM) will also remain constrained, lest the South Asian neighbours learn to peacefully collaborate for mutual gain.’