REGIONAL INTEGRATION: ASIA
HIGH-IMPACTA STRATEGY
PHOTO: Andrey_Kuzmin/
Shutterstock.com
Cecile Fruman, the World Bank’s Director of Regional Integration and Engagement in South Asia, shares her views about the importance of regional solutions and working with partners – including the OPEC Fund – to drive complex cross-border programs.
OPEC Fund Quarterly: Why is regional integration important from a development perspective? Cecile Fruman: Our mission at the World Bank is to reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity, two goals that have become more challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence has shown that regional integration is a high-impact strategy to create jobs and raise productivity by investing in inland waterways, roads, and other infrastructure, and reducing trade barriers. But improving cooperation and the ability to tackle shared problems may be even more important in the long run. For example, large areas of
12
South Asia are facing increasingly severe weather with widespread flooding and deadly landslides. Another challenge is melting glaciers in the Himalayas, which impact drinking water for some 900 million people living downstream in the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra river basins. These cross-border issues require regional solutions. We publish our regional integration activities on
www.worldbank.org/OneSouthAsia.
OFQ: What are the main obstacles preventing integration? Cecile Fruman: South Asia is one of the world’s least integrated regions. Intra- regional trade accounts for barely five
percent of South Asia’s total trade. By comparison, intra-regional trade makes up half of all ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) trade. High tariffs, trade barriers, and inefficient border procedures discourage intra- regional trading among South Asia’s eight nations. Our research found it’s faster and cheaper for a firm in India to trade with Brazil – on the other side of the globe – than with Pakistan next door. Integrated regions such as East Asia and Europe move goods and services easily across borders and use transport links to create economic corridors. They work together to manage transboundary rivers in a sustainable way. Integrated
PHOTO: Ankit –
stock.adobe.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
