Study of Indian foreign policy and attempts at Asian international cooperation in both economic and political aspects, and at economic integration. Bibliography pp. 149-152.

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 book reviews progress with regional cooperation and integration in Asia and the Pacific and explores how it can be reshaped to achieve a more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive future. Consisting of papers contributed by renowned scholars and Asian Development Bank staff, the book covers four major areas: public goods, trade and investment, financial cooperation, and regional health cooperation. The book emphasizes how the region can better leverage regional integration to realize its vast potential as well as overcome challenges such as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) aims to achieve greater integration between the ASEAN region and its six free trade agreement (FTA) partners (India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Korea). The RCEP is the only agreement to include three economies which are among the seven biggest economies of the world—China, Japan and India. The book opens with an introduction to the current status of economic integration and factors that would affect it and looks at key issues like non-tariff barriers, evolving investment regulations in China (in the context of FTAs), connectivity initiatives to integrate the region, rules of origin in the context of value chain integration in selected sectors as well as region-specific aspects of South Asia and South East Asia which would shape the regional economic architecture going forward. With an attempt to cover key imperatives, the book concludes by noting primary impediments to easier trade and investment flows in the region, highlighting possible policy recommendations to improve economic integration.

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.

This book aims to trigger a wider examination of Asian economic integration. It looks at the institutional progression of regional economic integrations in countries in Asia, including Japan, Korea and China; it also looks at India's participation in the Asian market, and how it will affect other East Asian countries.

Trade regionalism, through regional cooperation and integration and in the form of regional trade agreements (RTAs), is rising globally, although Asia has jumped on the bandwagon only recently. Asian economic integration is the second-best approach which Asian countries unfortunately have to follow. In the process of integration, China and India, given the size of their population and population, as well as their central strategic position in international and regional relations, will inevitably play fundamentally important, and sometimes even dominating, roles. This paper argues that regional economic integration in Asia should first of all realize sub-regional integration in East Asia and South Asia, while linking up the two sub-regions with bilateral FTAs, among which the most important one should be a China-India FTA. Eventually, all the FTAs will be consolidated into one pan-Asian FTA. China and India must take the lead in promoting Asian economic integration. They are advised to lead the region to practice open regionalism (with however Asian identity) and conduct deeper integration. Lastly, it is suggested that Asian countries should, at this stage, establish an institution to develop (non-binding) common principles and guidelines for the sub-regional and bilateral FTAs.