Payments Arrangements And Monetary Cooperation In South Asia

This book shows how regional cooperation and integration have increased massively in scale and scope in recent years, as developing countries seek new ways to shield themselves from economic turbulence and to kick-start their economies in the face of stagnant global demand. The trend is partly a defense mechanism against the limitations of the international financial system, but also reflects a wider search for new and different growth paths more appropriate with developing countries’ increasing economic and political voice. As a consequence, the landscape of financial and monetary mechanisms has changed dramatically, especially in the ten years since the economic crisis of 2007–2008.

Surveys the growing literature on monetary cooperation in East Asia (EA) that goes beyond the Chiang Mai Initiative. It compares and contrasts the various proposals for cooperation such as the Williamson basket peg, the Asian monetary system, and the yen block as to their crisis prevention impact and their feasibility, both economic and political. Also reviews the evidence on the readiness of EA and some of its proper subsets for a currency union in the light of experiences elsewhere, especially of European monetary cooperation. Chapters: currency unions and the European Monetary Union; current exchange rate regime and monetary cooperation in EA; proposals for monetary and exchange rate cooperation in EA; and costs and benefits of a monetary union in EA.

South Asian leaders have made it a priority to tackle key regional issues such as poverty, environment degradation, trade and investment barriers and food insecurity, among others.

This report examines how countries in South Asia could capitalize on opportunities to cooperate for closer regional economic integration, in particular in the four broad areas of trade and market integration, regional connectivity, financial cooperation, and collective actions to address shared risks and vulnerabilities. It reveals that trade barriers, infrastructural deficits and political divergences have cost the sub-region direly in terms of lost opportunities for exports. The report underscores the prospects available for South Asian countries to play a stronger role in broader regionalism in Asia-Pacific as well as discusses the unique role of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in facilitating that process.

Economic Integration in South Asia: Issues and Pathways is one of the volumes of the series titled, Imagine a New South Asia, presented by ActionAid International Asia. This volume envisions a new South Asia, free from human deprivation and poverty, where countries will become successful, proud and inclusive societies. This book demonstrates how South Asian countries can learn from the best practices in the region as well as from their failures, and also by trying to emulate the successful strategies of introducing egalitarian education and health systems of East Asia, China and Southeast Asian countries. Rich in analysis and research, this volume seeks an alternative people-centred perspective, and takes into account all those voices that have so long been unheard in policy-making processes through reviews of case studies. Not only will the findings of this volume be useful in conducting campaigns for appropriate policy and mindset changes, but these will also, eventually, make the emergence of a highly integrated South Asia truly possible.