India's trade with South and Southeast Asia: scope for further cooperation

Abstract

This paper briefly examines the current status of India's trade relations with two developing sub-regions of Asia, namely, South Asia and Southeast Asia. South Asia covers seven countries who have recently loosely grouped themselves under "South Asian Regional Cooperation" (SARC) and are likely to formally launch "South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation" (SAARC) in December 1985. These countries are : Bangladesh, Bhutan , India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Southeast Asia covers five countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. This paper explores the progress and prospects for "South-South" cooperation in trade and trade-related areas. For analysing trade relations, we have employed two analytical measures, namely, (I) Kojima indices of trade intensity; and (ii) Wadhva index of trade reciprocity.