South Asia Development and Cooperation Report 2004

The South Asia Development and Cooperation Report 2004 is the third in the series of Reports launched by RIS to provide an analysis of the macro-economic performance of South Asian economies against the background of global trends and the policy challenges being faced by them with a special focus on the role that regional economic integration could play. An early draft of the present Report was presented and discussed at the Sixth Meeting of the SAARC Network of Researchers, held in Islamabad on December 8, 2003. As per the recommendation of the Meeting of SAARC Network, some advance copies of the Report were sent to the Twelfth SAARC Summit held in Islamabad in January 2004. The Report was released by Chairman, RIS at a seminar organized by RIS in New Delhi on 27 January 2004 followed by a Panel Discussion by noted experts of the region, viz. Professor Muchkund Dubey; Dr A.R. Kemal, Director, PIDE, Islamabad, Dr Rehman Sobhan, Executive Director, SACEPS, Dhaka; and Dr Saman Kelegama, IPS, Colombo. RIS plans discussion meetings on the contents of the Report in other SAARC capitals in collaboration with its network partners.

Research Team: Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Prof. K.J. Joseph, Dr. Ram Upendra Das, Dr. Sachin Chaturvedi, Dr. Mirza Allim Baig, Mr. Prabir De and Dr. Saon Ray