Fourth SASEC meet to discuss economic cooperation

The senior officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal are meeting in Manila this week to move forward on initiatives to enhance regional economic cooperation in South Asia through strategic infrastructure projects and constructive dialogue.

The fourth South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) country advisors' meeting, hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), provides a venue for senior South Asian officials to discuss the implementation of regional trade, transport, IT and tourism projects, and to address issues that can strengthen collaboration among the participating countries, and with other regional initiatives.

"This meeting comes at an opportune time for South Asian nations to work towards the implementation of concrete projects. The SASEC initiative is at the point where it will yield concrete benefits to the peoples of the region," said Kunio Senga, ADB director general for the South Asia Department.

The proposed sub-regional investment projects that will be discussed by delegates include the Information Highway Project, the Tourism Development Project, and the Transport Logistics and Trade Facilitation Project.

Delegates will also discuss strategic issues such as increasing collaboration among the various SASEC working groups, flexible membership, increasing country ownership, and closer collaboration with other regional initiatives such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) as well as other regional trading arrangements.

The SASEC initiative was launched in 2001 with ADB assistance to support and facilitate regional cooperation initiatives in six priority sectors - energy and power, environment, information and communication technology, tourism, trade, investment, and private sector cooperation and transport.

It provides a venue for policy dialogue, information sharing and confidence building among participating countries to enable better economic cooperation.