This golden quadrilateral has nothing to do with the highway networks in India.
This is a start of a new sub regional grouping of India, Bangladesh and Nepal Bhutan to establish a new trading bloc. SAARC has not had much traction due to India-Pakistan relations so the idea is that this sub regional grouping can be the nucleus of a new region wide model of integration. Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand may also be added later.
The base of this grouping will be formed by India and Bangladesh
Asian trade sub-group in the works
New Delhi, Aug. 22: The move to form a new sub-regional group comprising Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan is rapidly gaining ground.
“We are within Saarc and ultimately want that forum to succeed, but we are now also working to take forward a sub-regional trade movement. This looks promising and could move at a much faster pace,” Bangladesh commerce minister Farouk Khan told The Telegraph.
South Asian free trade has been affected by the relations between India and Pakistan. The latter refuses to give India the most favoured nation status, while India views all investment proposals from Pakistan with suspicion.
However, trade among India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are on a more even keel. India allows Nepal and Bhutan duty free access to its market for all their manufactured goods and allows duty free transit of any imports from these countries.
Total trade between India and Nepal stands at over $3.4 billion and India and Bhutan at $1.2 billion. India officially does business of $3.5 billion with Bangladesh.
“We want to cash in on the relationship between these four nations… Trade will be in goods, services and in energy resources,” Khan said. Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to India, Tariq Karim, is on a visit to Bhutan to take the move to forge a sub-regional trade movement forward.
Bangladesh wants a sub-regional pact for road and rail connectivity, electric grid and water resources management with India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also discuss this sub-regional understanding on trade with Sheikh Hasina during his visit to Dhaka next month.
Analysts in India say the sub-regional deal can eventually feed into either a South Asian free trade pact — repeatedly stalled by differences between India and Pakistan — or into Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), a group comprising India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan.
“This sub regional movement can be a driver for both Saarc or Bimstec,” said Nagesh Kumar, chief economist of UN’s ESCAP.
Sheikh Hasina’s two top advisers – Gowher Rizvi and Mashiur Rahman were in Delhi earlier this month to take the proposal forward.
“There is rethinking on the whole paradigm of regional cooperation,” Rahman said.
“Hydel power co-operation between the four nations, which could be linked through a sub-regional grid, would mean energy security for all,” said Rahman.
Bangladesh wants to invest in hydel projects in India’s Northeast, Bhutan and Nepal. India has already built a grid connectivity with Bangladesh and has grid links with Bhutan and Nepal.