Eighteen SAARC summit: Despite so many commonalities, countries - TopicsExpress

Eighteen SAARC summit: Despite so many commonalities, countries of South Asia have as many differences among themselves. Out of eight members, six countries share land borders with each other. However, they don’t connect each other. With over a billion population, the regional trade is a very negligible, as is bilateral trade among the countries of the region, which is nominal compared to their bilateral trade with countries of other regions. Although South Asian leaders have already gathered seventeen times in the last 30 years, nothing concrete has been achieved to break the barrier in trade, bilateral relations and connectivity. With the piles of challenges, including poverty, climate change, food insecurity and natural disasters, they will need to chart out collective agenda to deal with effectively.