South Asia is regaining its economic momentum, but the recovery in the world’s region with the largest number of poor people could falter in the absence of a stronger investment climate. The combined growth of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka was just 4.7% in 2012, substantially below pre-crisis levels. Much of the recent slowdown in economic growth can be attributed to stagnating investment. Total fixed investment grew by 2.6% in 2012, down from a high of 16.7% in 2010. The performance varies widely across the region. At the same time, the region is now more vulnerable because current account balances have widened, foreign direct investment has slowed, and persistently high inflation has limited the ability for central banks to use monetary policy to counter any economic downturn. Because of rising imports, countries in South Asia are also more vulnerable to increases in commodity prices. Therefore, the outlook remains cautiously optimistic with a relatively large downside risk. A pick-up of growth to 5.5% can be expected in 2013 dependent on ongoing efforts to rebuild policy buffers and boost private investment.

Gradual removal of stimulus policies continues as developed economies follow their expected path of slow but sustained recovery. After suffering from international portfolio rebalancing triggered by gradual removal of quantitative easing in the US announced in May 2013, India in particular and South Asia more broadly have managed to reduce external vulnerability. However, growth across the region continues to falter while formidable domestic challenges remain to be tackled. The overall short and medium term outlook for South Asia remains cautiously positive. External vulnerabilities are gradually giving way to domestic downside risks as primary concern for growth and macroeconomic stability. Hence, as previous regional economic updates have argued, any positive development in growth will depend on progress isolating domestic threats to and building buffers for macroeconomic stability, strengthening the investment climate, and removing infrastructure bottlenecks. Over the short and medium run, the economic fortunes of South Asian economies will depend in part on financial sector developments. In the short term the key question is how further monetary contraction in the US will affect them. Over the medium run it will be crucial to achieve more robust and efficient financial intermediation to ensure greater resilience to shocks and that resources are allocated to fund major remaining infrastructure gaps. This edition’s focus section attempts to answer the first question and sheds light on risks in the South Asian banking sector.

The South Asia Economic Focus is a biannual economic update presenting recent economic developments and a near term economic outlook for South Asia. It includes a Focus section presenting more in depth analysis of an economic topic of relevance for stability, growth and prosperity in the region as well as country briefs covering Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It concludes with a data section providing key economic indicators for South Asia "at a glance". Overall, it aims at providing important background information and timely analysis of key indicators and economic and financial developments of relevance to World Bank Group operations and interaction with counterparts in the region, particularly during annual and spring meeting.

Global capital re-balancing has highlighted structural weakness and vulnerability in South Asia, acting as a wake-up call for policy makers. Given the recent economic turmoil across emerging market economies, this edition's focus section examines the relationship between the transmission of economic shocks from India to the rest of South Asia.

South Asia by now has consolidated its position as fastest growing developing region in the world. Against the backdrop of relative external stability and some monetary policy space, growth is expected to continue a gradual acceleration on the back of strong investment performance and a return to solid contributions from export growth. India remains the motor of the region and on its way closer to 8 percent real GDP growth, though on a relatively more gradual path than previously anticipated. At the same time, economies across the region will have to tackle fading tailwinds and face ever more binding domestic constraints in the form of persistently high fiscal deficits together with high debt levels as well as some vulnerabilities in the financial sector. The focus section of this report will delve deeper into evaluating the quality of fiscal consolidation and policy, trying to assess short and longer term impact across major South Asian economies.

South Asia region’s economies are beginning to recover, though unevenly: economic activity in industry and export sectors have recovered to pre-COVID levels but some labor-intensive services sectors and tourism have not. Inequality has worsened on many dimensions. The process of vaccinating South Asia’s population is underway, with India taking a leading role in production. The socioeconomic benefits of vaccinating most South Asians as soon as possible outweighs the cost by multiple times, and thus justifies having public sector financing. Cracks in the primary health care system became evident since the pandemic began, and the vaccine rollout is likely to have other additional challenges such as delays in production, bottlenecks in supply chain logistics and vaccine hesitancy from some groups (which could delay the process of herd immunity). There are also tradeoffs in the priorities that should be established in deciding who gets the vaccine first.

With South Asia's growing energy demand, governments in the region are facing the short-term pressures of facilitating energy access, while attempting to formulate long-term sustainable strategies. This book explores how the key economies of South Asia are addressing issues such as the diversification of energy consumption profiles and import sources, investments in renewables, enabling universal energy access, challenges to regional energy cooperation, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and the policy changes that can foster bilateral and multilateral action.As governments seek to ensure access to affordable, reliable, secure, sustainable and modern energy, trends and drivers are emerging and shaping the South Asian energy landscape. The first section of the book examines energy trends at the regional level, while the second section focuses on the internal and external challenges faced by India — the largest energy consumer in the region and the third-largest energy consumer in the world.The diverse perspectives in this volume provide a holistic snapshot of South Asia's ongoing low-carbon energy transition, and highlight the importance of the region working collectively to navigate the many obstacles.