Jumpstarting South Asia Revisiting Economic Reforms and Look East Policies

Economic reforms implemented by the South Asian countries in the 1980s and 1990s had positive impacts on growth, and the region's share of world GDP had started to increase. But, more recently, economic growth in South Asia has softened somewhat due to a number of reasons. This book focuses on the slowing pace of economic reforms and makes the case for a two-pronged strategy to jumpstart South Asian economies. First, South Asian countries should complete the economic reform process that they had begun and implement the more microeconomic reforms, namely, the sectoral, and governance and institutional reforms to enhance competition and improve the operation of markets. Second, they should implement the second round of 'Look East' policies or LEP2 to (i) link themselves to production networks in East Asia, their fastest growing markets, and (ii) develop production networks in manufacturing and services within their region. The book argues that the proposed strategy will lead to a win-win situation for all countries in South Asia and East Asia, and reinvigorate economic integration within South Asia, one of the least integrated regions of the world. The book also identifies the unfinished policy reform agenda for each South Asian country and the components of the LEP2 that they should implement.

Pradumna B. Rana is associate professor and the coordinator of International Political Economy Programme at the Centre for Multilateralism Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Chia Wai-Mun is associate professor of Economics at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.