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Tuesday, 9 December 2014 01:13 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Dr. Kelegama was speaking at a forum held yesterday by the Institute of Chartered Management Accountants (CMA) and the Institute of Certified Professional Managers (CPM) to commemorate the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Charter Day.
Both the CMA and the CPM are members of the SAARC organisations, the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) and the Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia (AMDISA) respectively.
“Regionalism leads to more balanced development,” Dr. Kelegama stated.
“When we have a regional cooperation framework, we always take into account that there are large countries and small countries, countries which are powerful and less-developed countries, so accordingly the regulatory framework to govern regional cooperation is built in to ensure that a win-win outcome is worked out.”
Dr. Kelegama stated that regional cooperation would allow countries to take action on issues such as disaster management, food security, sustainability in the agricultural and environmental sectors and increase the efficiency of ICT connectivity and communications, financial cooperation, energy trading and allow industry to develop and use more resources.
He highlighted several SAARC initiatives as examples of regional cooperation including the SAARC Regional Multimodal Transport Study that would enable all eight member states to be better connected by road, rail, water, maritime and air transport networks and the SAARC Development Fund which helps finance social, economic and infrastructure projects.
The event was opened by Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala, the current President of the CMA and the CPM, who reminded the audience why and how the Indian Ocean Region was statistically important.
“If you really look at the SAARC region, you will find that SAARC region is the third largest in the world in terms of GDP after the USA and China and if you look at it population wise, although the SAARC region occupies 3% of the world’s area, it has a population of 21% or 1.7 billion of total global population,” Prof. Watawala stated.
Former Secretary General of SAARC, former Ambassador and Ministry of External Affairs Secretary Ambassador Nihal Rodrigo also spoke on the issues faced in working towards regional co-operation and on the new focus on SAARC’s relationship with China.
Ambassador Rodrigo dismissed the currently popular “string of pearls” theory that China was attempting to gain control over India through strategic placement of marine ports at Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sitwe in Myanmar.
Ambassador Rodrigo stated that this theory, first put forward by the US think tank Booz-Hamilton-Allen, did not make sense and that China’s current role in SAARC activities was limited to that of an external observer and that it was made clear that external observers could not interfere in SAARC’s internal affairs at the Maldives Summit.
“The ports are in fact link points in China’s maritime route and not the Chinese means of entrapping India,” he said.
“It is increasingly clear that the contemporary route offers opportunities for Asian states including particularly the SAARC states to benefit from bilateral and sub-regional cooperation with China given its standing now as the second largest economy in the world next to the United States.”
Ambassador Rodrigo then stated that it was important to consider allowing China to be more involved in SAARC activities and that aligning with China would prove economically beneficial for all the SAARC member states.
“The ASEAN encounter in China in September and the G20 Summit held in Brisbane in November have both noted the advantages of co-operating with China on the 21st century silk route,” he said.
“We have to see the extent to which within SAARC we can establish aspects of cooperation which will also be a good indication and inspiration for larger countries outside SAARC to join us in this whole operation.”
It was also revealed that the possibility of China becoming a full member of SAARC was discussed at the 18th SAARC Summit held in Kathmandu, Nepal a fortnight ago.
“Giving China full member status in SAARC was also discussed at the Summit and that was on the basis that China had bilateral discussions and more than that, common borders with a number of member states including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, parts of Nepal and Afghanistan as well,” Ambassador Rodrigo explained.
Dr. Kelegama agreed with the idea of closer cooperation with countries such as China and stated that if the future goal of SAARC was to move to a common market scenario along the lines of the European Union, then it was necessary to cooperate within the region and also outside it to solve the issues that the SAARC region has to face.
“Through regional cooperation efforts there can be more confidence building in the region and only this confidence building will facilitate South Asia to move towards what would be called economic union which was mentioned in the declaration at Kathmandu last month,” he said.
A panel then followed the keynotes with representatives from the High Commissions and Embassies of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan discussing the role that SAARC should play in continuing global and regional cooperation and what obstacles the organisation had to face in putting decisions into practice.
In addition to Dr. Kelegama, Ambassador Rodrigo and Prof. Watawala, the panel included the former Legal Advisor for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Dr. A. Rohan Perera, the First Secretary (Economic and Commercial Wing) for the High Commission of India Kartik Pande, the Deputy High Commissioner for the High Commission of Pakistan Dr. Safraz Ahmed Khan Sipra, the Ambassador for Afghanistan Azizuddin Ahmadzada, and SJMS Associates Managing Partner Basheer Ismail.
Dr. Perera explained that in trying to insulate the SAARC member states from the threat of terrorism and the ensuing destabilisation that the cause was not often external. He also stated that while the SAARC organisation and members deliberated and acted on their decisions, change was often incremental and slow but would gradually build up and cited the creation of the European Union, from its inception in 1957 to the current moment, as an example.
The panel concluded that the changes made by SAARC member states and organisations, while slow and incremental, were also positive changes towards the goal of a South Asian Economic Community.
