Abstract
Today we are living in such a highly complicated and interdependent world where no country can remain isolated. Since the end of the Second World War, regional cooperation and integration has become a common phenomenon across the world. SAARC and ASEAN have been two such regional groupings which have been created with the prime objective of attaining greater economic cooperation and integration. However, in terms of achievements, SAARC and ASEAN remain at completely two different levels. On one hand there is Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has made great strides in terms of regional cooperation while there is also South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), whose own future is at doubt. Against this backdrop, the study looks into how well ASEAN has able to perform in terms of regional cooperation and integration, while it also looks into where SAARC has underperformed with special focus on economic cooperation. The main objective of this study is to understand the importance of economic cooperation and integration for economic development. A comparison would make it possible to better understand the dos and don’ts of becoming successful in regional economic integration. This is a desk research based on secondary data. As this study is based on economic aspect of regional integration, it shall take in to consideration aspects like trade volumes, investments and tourist arrivals etc. the study has underscored the importance of enhancing intra-regional trade, investments and tourism and the role of the leader within a regional entity as the main pillars of intra-regional economic success, while it also calls for the opportunities of initiating inter regional cooperation.
Highlights
Today we are living in a highly globalized and sophisticated world where no country can remain isolated
As this study is based on economic aspect of regional integration, it shall take in to consideration aspects like trade volumes, investments and tourists arrivals etc. the study shall compare South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) under these economic criteria, how they have performed in order to understand the level of integration they have attained while it focuses on the level of impact made by these numbers on the economic development of individual states belong to SAARC and ASEAN in order to understand impact of regional integration on economic development of both individual countries and region as a whole
First and foremost, the members within a grouping should trust and understand each other. This is something which we see within ASEAN and do not see in SAARC
Summary
Today we are living in a highly globalized and sophisticated world where no country can remain isolated. Regional cooperation and regional integration have occupied greater prominence and relevance in contemporary world politics. Regional cooperation has been identified as one of the main strategies which can be used to solve common political, economic, scientific and socio-cultural issues faced by countries in a particular geographical area. Looking at various regional organizations which are there today, we can observe that the formation of regional set ups has been greatly successful in bringing historically hostile countries on a common platform. Looking at the overall performance of any regional organization, statistics show that the establishment of such organizations has enhanced the volume of trade and investment which have eventually contributed towards greater economic success of the vast majority of countries around the world. Intra- regional trade expansion is one of the efficient ways of integrating to the much larger international economy as the countries become more competitive both in terms of input use and cost effect production of output (Chowdhury & Mamta, 2005, p.24)
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