South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Excerpt characterizing the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was formed in 1985. Its members are eight South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Observers to the Association are Australia, Iran, China, Mauritius, Myanmar, USA, South Korea, Japan and the EU.
In accordance with the Charter, the main goal of SAARC is to develop interaction between member countries in the economic, socio-cultural, scientific and technical fields. With the accession of Afghanistan (in 2007), the Association began to discuss issues of combating terrorism.
The SAARC Secretariat is located in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. The highest body of SAARC is the meeting of heads of state and government. The Secretary General of the Association (2014-2017) is the representative of Nepal Arjun Bahadur Thapa. SAARC website – www.saarc-sec.org.
Ministerial meetings are held periodically on sectoral areas (economy, trade, tourism, women and children's problems, nature conservation, poverty eradication, culture, information, communications, etc.). If necessary, sessions of the Council of Foreign Ministers and meetings of the SAARC Standing Committee at the level of First Deputy Foreign Ministers are convened.
The structure of the Association includes 6 committees overseeing individual areas of cooperation:
1) agriculture and rural development;
2) transport;
3) environmental protection;
4) science and technology;
5) human resource development;
6) affairs of women, youth and children.
In addition, “specialized regional centers” operate in the participating countries:
- Agricultural Information Center (Bangladesh),
- tuberculosis control center (Nepal),
- documentation center (India),
- Meteorological Research Center (Bangladesh),
- Center for Human Resource Development (Pakistan),
- cultural center (Sri Lanka),
- Center for the Use of Coastal Zone Resources (Maldives),
- information center (Nepal),
- forestry center (Bhutan),
- emergency response center (India),
- Energy Center (Pakistan).
The Agreement on the Establishment of a Free Trade Area (SAFTA) in South Asia, signed in 2005, is of key importance for deepening trade and economic cooperation between the participating countries. Along with the 1993 South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA), it provides a legal framework for reducing customs tariffs and liberalizing regional trade. A decision was made to create the SAFTA Ministerial Council and the Committee of Experts, which will implement the agreement.
Interaction between SAARC and other regional associations (ASEAN, EU) and international organizations is being established (memorandums of understanding have been signed with UNDP, WHO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, ESCAP).
The next, 18th meeting of the heads of state and government of SAARC took place on November 26-27, 2014 in Kathmandu. As a result, the declaration “Deepening integration for peace and prosperity” was adopted. The document contains an instruction to study the issue of introducing the institution of dialogue partners and giving the appropriate status to interested observer countries.
The next summit of the Association will take place in 2016 in Pakistan.
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
This international organization was created in the early 1990s. It consists of seven South Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka - with a total population of over 1.4 billion people. The association has not yet proven itself to be a real economic force with integration potential. Certain positive changes have emerged in the recent period. In particular, in 2001, a Free Trade Agreement was adopted, according to which customs barriers between these countries should have been abolished by January 2006, but this did not happen. In July 2004, the SLARK forum was held in Islamabad, where the implementation of the provisions of this agreement was discussed. However, the main thing on the agenda was a political issue: a peaceful resolution of the conflict between two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, the significance of which went far beyond the region. Its unresolved nature is blocking many important economic processes in this region, including the integration process, which requires the coordination of many decisions.
The idea of global integration in East Asia
The need for closer interaction between the countries of East Asia, as a region growing at a faster pace than other regions of the world, has been discussed in the capitals of these countries for a relatively long time; no concrete steps have been taken in this direction. The meeting on July 1, 2004 in Jakarta of the foreign ministers of China, Japan, South Korea and ten ASEAN member countries marked the beginning of the development of the political and legal formation of integration processes. At the ministerial meeting held as part of the first and second East Asia Summit in 2005 in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Beijing (China) in 2007, the task was to create East Asian Community. It is also significant that, putting forward first of all the solution of trade and economic problems and promoting integration through their solution, representatives of the countries declared their intention not to limit themselves to harmonizing tariffs and duties, but to go further in order to resolve the problems of political integration. This is a kind of idea about a new “triad”: Japan - China - ASEAN, and the price of the issue is excessively high: the volume of trade between Japan and ASEAN is more than $140 billion, and with China - about $180 billion.
If current growth trends in regional trade (not to mention investment) continue, intra-Asian trade is expected to become more important for Tokyo and Seoul than trade relations with Europe and the United States within the current decade. Currently, Japanese companies are increasingly presenting their electrical and electronics innovations not in New York, as has been the case for two decades, but in Shanghai and Beijing.
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
LTES is not an "organization", it is just an association. Therefore, there is no need to talk about “integration” at all, although this kind of arbitrary interpretation is often used in the literature in relation to APEC. It was established in 1989 as an intergovernmental forum that united 12 countries: 6 developed states of the Pacific Ocean (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA, South Korea, Japan) and 6 developing states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Indonesia , Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines). By 1997, APEC already included almost all the major countries of the Pacific region: Hong Kong (1993), KIIP (1993), Mexico (1994), Papua New Guinea (1994), Taiwan (1993), Chile (1995) became new members. . In 1998, simultaneously with the admission of three new members to APEC - Russia, Vietnam and Peru - a 10-year moratorium was introduced on further expansion of the forum's membership. India and Mongolia have applied to join APEC. Thus, this institution represents the main countries of a huge region with a significant and growing economic presence in the Asia-Pacific region. This forum began as an informal dialogue development group with a limited number of participants in the 1990s. APEC gradually began to transform into a complex supranational institution that facilitates the coordination of the efforts of member countries in trade, investment and financial fields. Its main declared goals include supporting the dynamic economic development of the Asia-Pacific region and liberalizing activities in these areas through negotiation mechanisms.
At a meeting of heads of state and government in 1994 in Bogor (Indonesia), APEC members committed to establishing a free trade regime and achieving investment liberalization by 2020 (for developed countries - 2010) through a process of so-called negotiated unilateralism. This decision was reflected in the APEC Declaration. However, the organization does not have overall developed plans to achieve its goals. Each country develops them independently in different areas of the economy, including in the field of trade liberalization. However, it was decided that annual reviews of the economic situation were necessary. The first such review report was presented at the APEC Summit held in Vancouver in November 1997. The concept of the report was called an alternative, “Asian” strategy for trade liberalization, different from the strategy of “trade concessions” and drafted for multilateral negotiations, including through the WTO. The reduction of customs barriers in APEC, according to the Asian strategy, will take place in accordance with agreements reached at the WTO. The basis for such development has already been created in previous years: in particular, for 1988-2000. The weighted average tariff on imports of goods among APEC members decreased by one third - from 15.4 to 9.3%, respectively, and the volume of mutual trade increased rapidly.
At the Vancouver APEC summit (2005), it was decided to lift certain country restrictions on trade in goods and services in areas such as environmental technologies, telecommunications, energy equipment, chemicals, medical equipment and instruments, fish and seafood , forest, toys and jewelry. Within APEC, steps are being taken to remove barriers to mutual trade in services, and rules are being developed to unify trade and technical standards. The recommendations of the Meeting of Heads of State and Government (2005) are also based on the need to further eliminate trade and economic barriers in cooperation between APEC member countries. Analysts associate certain progress in the active work of APEC with the forum in Vladivostok (2011)
On August 2–3, 2008, the fifteenth summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation/SAARC, which includes eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was held in the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. Officially founded on December 8, 1985.
The main goals of the association are to develop efforts for further economic growth, provide assistance and assistance in expanding trade relations, social progress and cultural development, aimed at raising the level and improving the quality of life of peoples, establishing peace, stability and progress in the region; as well as the development of procedures aimed at weakening the control regime when crossing borders by civilians; development of infrastructure and social projects such as transport, healthcare, etc.
Key issues included in the agenda of the July 2008 summit:
— fight against extremism and terrorism;
— establishment of a food bank, the main goal of which is to combat
hunger due to sharply increased food prices; questions
food shortages in the region;
— creation of a regional development fund;
— development of rules for standardization of products sold by countries;
— energy security issues;
— issues of environmental protection and climate change, etc.
One of the main issues discussed is the fight against terrorism and extremism. “In the absence of stability and security in the region, the countries of South Asia cannot move towards progress...,” said SAARC Chairman, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
On August 3, 2008, the leaders signed the so-called Pact on Judicial Assistance in the Fight against Terrorism. The agreement provides for extensive exchange of information and legal cases related to crimes and terrorism among SAARC member countries.
The second most actively discussed issue is poverty, food shortages in individual countries of South Asia that are part of the association; mechanisms for providing them with prompt assistance in view of the sharp increase in world food prices. The population of the association countries makes up a fifth of the world's population, while millions of them live in poverty.
Recognizing the regional energy crisis, members of the Colombo summit stressed the urgent need to jointly develop hydropower projects and revive energy programs that include solar panels and wind turbines.
At the same time, the leaders of the SAARC countries emphasized the lack of real progress in one of the cornerstone areas of cooperation - trade, the main issue of the association, formulated back in 1985.
Today, domestic trade of the countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation accounts for only 5% of the total level of trade, while in other regional forums such as ASEAN this figure reaches 26%.
At the same time, the summit left almost no attention to such an important issue for the countries of the region as the South Asian Free Trade Area/SAFTA Agreement, which came into force more than two years ago, but remained unrealized. The main goal of the Agreement is the removal of customs barriers and the abolition of tariff rates on products by 2012; creation of a single Customs Union, Common Market and Economic Union.
The main stages of development of the Agreement - 1996 establishment of the Intergovernmental Expert Group; 1998 - A Committee of Experts was founded to develop an agreement on the creation of a free economic zone in the region, taking into account the imbalances in the level of economic development of the countries of South Asia.
In January 2004, the Agreement on a Free Economic Zone in South Asia was signed in Islamabad, which entered into force on January 1, 2006. The list of competing goods, rules of origin of goods, and a compensation mechanism for reduced income for countries with underdeveloped economies are currently being discussed.
Under the Trade Liberalization Program, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2016, customs duties on goods in the region will be significantly reduced. At the same time, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, under the Least Developed Countries Harvest Program, are required to reduce customs duties by 0-5% by January 2009 on products imported from these countries. As many observers have noted, constant disagreements between India and Pakistan on mutual tariff concessions are hampering the development of the Agreement.
The meeting in early July was no exception. The discussion of the main issue on the agenda - the economic growth of the countries participating in the summit - was drowned in noisy proceedings between members of the two delegations - India and Pakistan on the issue of the eternal dispute - Kashmir.
In addition to issues of economic cooperation, Prime Minister of Pakistan Yusuf Raza Gilani used the opportunity to meet and negotiate with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The tension in bilateral relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan has recently been caused by the intensification of the activities of various terrorist groups in the settlement zone of Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border, and, accordingly, mutual accusations. Islamabad complains to the Kabul administration for its inability to restore order in the country, while the latter sharply criticizes the coalition government's ceasefire agreement with militants in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
The prime minister's main goal was to relieve tension between the two countries, develop a joint strategy in the fight against terrorism and extremism, and coordinate actions to detain militants crossing the border. During the meeting, an agreement was reached on a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries with the aim of developing a joint strategy in political and military strategy with the support of NATO member countries. This visit helped in reducing tension and dispelling doubts and misunderstandings with Afghanistan...,” said R.Y.Gilani.
In addition to issues of joint fight against terrorism and extremism, today the two countries are connected by problems of acute shortage of energy resources. On August 4, 2008, the next day of the end of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, both Pakistan and Afghanistan signed an Agreement on the transfer of 1000 MW of electricity from the two Central Asian republics - Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The urgent need for such an energy project given the almost 50% shortage of energy resources, in particular in Pakistan, can lead to a compromise solution to the “Pashtun issue”.
SAARC leaders accepted Pakistan's proposal to hold the next, third meeting of the interior ministers of the countries participating in the summit in Islamabad in 2008.
The 16th SAARC Summit will be held in the Maldives.
Created in 1985 Member States: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Goals: accelerating economic development, social progress and cultural development of member countries and establishing peace and stability in the region.
ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS (ASEAN)
The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines signed the Bangkok Declaration in 1967, which laid the foundations of ASEAN and was supplemented in 1976 by the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and the Framework Agreement for a Program of Action.
Member States: Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines.
Observer - Papua New Guinea; dialogue partners - EU, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, USA, Japan; consulting partners - China, Russia.
Goals: promoting regional cooperation in the economic, social and cultural spheres in order to strengthen peace in the region; accelerating economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint action in a spirit of equality and partnership; cooperation in agriculture, industry, trade, transport and communications in order to improve the standard of living of the population; strengthening peace and stability, etc. Headquarters is located in Singapore.
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB)
Established in 1965. It unites 56 member states: 40 regional (Asia and the Pacific, including Central Asian post-socialist countries) and 16 non-regional economically developed countries (USA, Canada, European countries), which are the largest shareholders. Goals: promoting economic growth and cooperation in Asia and the Pacific, poverty reduction, demographic policy, etc. Headquarters- in Manila.
ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION (APEC)
The organization was created at the initiative of Australia in 1989.
Member States: Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, China, Kiribati, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore, USA, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Chile, Japan. Observers: ASEAN, UTF, STES.
Goals: creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community; easing mutual trade barriers; creation of a single economic space through liberalization of trade and investment regime, development of economic cooperation, stimulation of the private sector; exchange of services and investments; extending cooperation to areas such as trade, environment, etc. A group of eminent figures from APEC countries is tasked with putting forward ideas about the future of the organization and discussing ways to implement them. Headquarters- in Singapore.
SOUTH ASIAN ASSOCIATION FOR REGIONAL COOPERATION (SAARC)
Created in 1985 with the aim of promoting the economic, social and cultural development of the peoples of the region, promoting the policy of self-reliance, strengthening cooperation with developing countries, and coordinating actions in international forums.
Participating States: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
Headquarters located in Kathmandu.
COOPERATION COUNCIL FOR THE ARAB GULF STATES (GCC)
A universal organization created in 1981 and uniting 6 states: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia. Sang: coordination and integration in all areas in order to achieve unity, including the creation of similar systems in the field of finance, economics, trade, law, culture, etc.
Headquarters is located in Riyadh.
"COLOMBO PLAN"
The Colombo Plan for joint economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific was adopted in 1950 at the initiative of member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. Unites 26 economically developed and developing countries, including non-regional ones - Great Britain, USA, Canada, which, along with Japan, are the largest creditors. Headquarters- in Colombo.
Name:
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, SAARC, SAARK
Flag/Coat of Arms:
Status:
regional economic, cultural and social organization
Structural units:
Secretariat;
Permanent Forum
Activity:
SAARC deals with economic, technical and cultural cooperation. In fact, political issues are also discussed, but this is not part of the organization’s profile
Official languages:
English
Participating countries:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Story:
To eliminate mistrust between the states and peoples of the region and strengthen regional security, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) could play an important role. So far, its activities have brought relatively little real results, but it should be taken into account that this is the first regional organization in South Asia, which is at the very beginning of its journey. SAARC was institutionalized in Dhaka in December 1985. India succeeded in achieving the establishment of a regional association on its own terms. Representatives of a number of countries tried to turn this organization into a forum for discussing controversial regional problems in order to give it a political and even military character in the future. However, India categorically rejected the idea of turning SAARC into a military-political organization, even in the distant future, and was able to obtain the consent of neighboring countries for SAARC to deal exclusively with issues of economic, technical and cultural cooperation. It was also agreed that all official discussions of bilateral, including controversial, issues in joint forums are prohibited, decisions will be considered made only with the consent of all parties.
So far, SAARC's activities in the economic field have not made it possible to achieve significant results and overcome the trend towards a relative reduction in economic cooperation between the countries of South Asia (in the 90s, intra-regional trade turnover amounted to about 1% of the total trade of the SAARC member countries). There are many difficult barriers to overcome here. As already noted, the levels of socio-economic development of the countries in the region and their policies in this area are different. As a result of the dismemberment of the subcontinent in 1947 and related events, economic ties were destroyed. By the 1980s, each country had finally created its own economic structures, focused mainly on the domestic market. At the same time, a tendency towards a constant (albeit relative) narrowing of participation not only in the intraregional, but also in the global division of labor has become noticeable. The economic structures of the countries of South Asia did not interact, but existed in almost complete isolation from each other. India's neighboring countries (primarily Pakistan) feared that broad economic cooperation within the framework of SAARC could lead to the further strengthening of a more powerful Indian capital at their expense. However, over time, the desire of South Asian countries to develop intraregional economic ties has become increasingly apparent. At the 9th SAARC Forum (Male, May 1997), discussions began on the possibility of creating a free trade area in South Asia by 2005, which would dramatically increase trade turnover and mutual investments.
Notes:
The most significant contribution of SAARC to the normalization of the situation in the region was the creation of a mechanism for holding informal meetings and discussions between the leaders of the participating countries. Indeed, the number of bilateral meetings between the seven leaders in a number of forums exceeded the total number of high-level talks held in South Asia in some five-year periods.