S. Asian states vow to intensify fight for prosperity

S. Asian states vow to intensify fight for prosperity

By Suzanne Goldenberg

MALE: When the King of Bhutan's entourage came to the Maldives for a regional summit last week they flew from Thimpu to Bangkok, Bangkok to Singapore, Singapore to Colombo, and Colombo to the capital Male.

It was more convenient than traveling through New Delhi, which would have taken them two days.

The tortuous travel arrangements illustrate the difficulties in bringing together seven countries whose 1.2 billion people account for a fifth of humanity but 40 percent of the world's destitute, struggling to survive on less than a dollar a day.

South Asia's leaders realized in the 1980s that they shared a common experience of under-development. Now, admitting that they have been frustrated in their efforts to create wealth, they are growing ever more enthusiastic about a notion borrowed from the rich -- economic integration -- as a means to prosperity.

"Our collective efforts so far have not had much impact on the lives of our people," King Jigme Singye Wangchuk of Bhutan told the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co- operation (Saarc).

"At a time when all countries are opening their markets to all parts of the world there is no reason why we in South Asia should restrict trade."

President Chandrika Kumarantunga of Sri Lanka was even more forthright. "While South Asia's spiritual heritage and its cultural legacies are second to none, our performance in the field of economic development is less than flattering, as all statistics would indicate."

The Pakistani economist and former finance minister Mahbub ul Haq wrote recently that while South Asia once was on a par with its neighbors to the east -- Asia's present economic tigers -- its fortunes have tumbled in the past 30 years. It has not kept pace with economic advances elsewhere, including sub-Saharan Africa, and its share of global GDP is declining. It out-performs other developing countries, he argues, only in its misery.

Fifty-two percent of its people cannot read or write. There are more children out of school here than in all the countries of the world combined, two-thirds of them female. Many, boys and girls alike, are put to work at brick kilns or in the fields.

Half of South Asia's children are underweight, compared to 30 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. India is estimated to have more HIV-infected citizens than Uganda and Nigeria combined.

About 260 million people have no hope of medical attention; 337 million drink water swimming with bacteria; 830 million do not have lavatories; 400 million go hungry.

The sheer scale of deprivation is undeniable, and yet, despite the convening of innumerable commissions, South Asian leaders have yet to agree on a common definition of poverty.

In part this is due to the diversity in an area where poverty is the main shared trait and one country -- India -- has not been adverse to demonstrating that it is far more powerful than its neighbors. South Asia stretches from the 2,000 coral islands of the Maldives, which on average rise 5ft 3ins above sea level, to Mount Everest in Nepal, which exceeds 29,000ft. It embraces India with more than 900 million people and the Maldives with fewer than 250,000.

Summit delegates from Bhutan, dressed in thick striped gowns and woollen kneesocks, looked out at the sea and confided: "We really don't feel like we are part of South Asia at all."

Maldivians yawned their way through reports on potato and wheat crops: the country has virtually no agriculture.

While Nepal languishes among the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of $200, the Maldives is surfing in the wake of a tourist boom towards the norm for developing countries, with a per capita income of $768.

But what is also undeniable is that region has been held back by regional conflict. In an era when military spending as a proportion of GNP is declining, Pakistan and India are increasing their spending on two of the largest armies in the world.

"We cannot afford the continuation of tensions, military confrontations and escalating defense budgets," the Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said before meeting his Indian counterpart this week.

"Non-productive expenditures have to be eliminated and replaced by those that promote national wealth. We have to channel our energies to improve the quality of life for our peoples."

Since 1985, when Saarc was founded by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives, summits have been held and slogans crafted. Deadlines have been set for the eradication of hunger and disease, homelessness and illiteracy. Leaders have expressed their commitment to the rights of the girl child, the preservation of the environment, and the prevention of natural disasters.

But in concrete terms co-operation has been largely confined to culture and sporting activities and the region has sunk deeper into poverty.

Amid the disillusion, South Asia leaders are trying to extend the market reforms begun in their own countries in the past 20 years by tearing down trade barriers. Although the poverty slogans have not been jettisoned, the excitement now is about trade and the possibility of creating a common market on the lines of the European Union. The bravest are even talking about a single currency.

This week the region's leaders promised to speed up the dismantling of tariffs and bureaucratic red tape and create a free trade zone by 2001. They also promised to introduce direct air links between their capitals. The idea is that removing protective barriers will keep prices down, create jobs, and encourage investment from within as well as outside the region.

"We have not been good at developing wealth within the region and the absence of trade is one of the factors," said Salman Haidar, the head of India's diplomatic service. "There is a sense we have to look after ourselves. Nobody is bothered about us."

Existing regional trade is minimal. In the past six months India's regional exports were worth about $800 million.

Officially, it exported about goods worth about $175 million to Pakistan last year -- almonds, betel nut and other commodities carried on the backs of porters across the half-mile no man's land which is the sole border crossing between the two countries.

Meanwhile, smuggled Indian-made goods worth $1 billion reached Pakistan, through Dubai and Singapore. Bangladesh conducts more than 60 percent of its trade with donor nations.

Although tariff concessions have been agreed on 2,000 items, the smaller countries complain that these do not apply to their own potential exports. But some things have cheered them. India promised at the summit to help ease routes from land-locked Bhutan and Nepal across its territory to Bangladeshi ports.

-- The Guardian