The 14th South Asian Economic Summit (SAES) concluded on Sunday emphasizing regional integration for bilateral trade development to utilize a huge potential market.

Speakers in the closing session of the 2-day summit once again repeated the call for integrating socio-economic progress, tax-customs policy, cultural exchange and setting trade opportunities through cooperation rather than competition in the cross border trade for developing South Asian nations.

In the closing ceremony, Irosha Coorary, Director Education Security and Culture, SAARC, Stefan Liller, Resident Representative, UNDP, Professor Rehman Sobhan, Founding Chairman of CPD, Jan Janowski, Deputy Head of the Mission, Embassy of German, Dr Paras Kharel, Executive Director ofSouth Asian Watch on Trader, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE, Nepal, Dr Dushni Weerakoon, Executive Director of Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Sri Lank, Dr khondaker Golam Moazzem, Research Director, CPD and Dr Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director of CPD, all spoke

The summit began on Saturday. Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhary MP was present in the opening session, while planning minister MA Mannan was the special guest.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organized the summit with the cooperation of The World Bank, UNDP, German Cooperation, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

On the 2nd day of the summit several sessions were held on climate change and resilience chaired by Dr M Asaduzzaman, former research director of BIDS, Bangladesh; cross-border labour market management chaired by Madhu Raman Acharya, former foreign secretary of Nepal; and value chains and foreign direct investment chaired by Dr NR Bhanumurthy, Vice-Chancellor of Dr BR Ambedkar School of Economic, India.

Former and existing governors of central banks, think tanks, researchers, and public policy analysts of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and host Bangladesh were present in the summit.

The papers presented in the different sessions of the summit highlighted that South Asia accounts for only 4 percent of the world's surface area, yet the region is home to nearly 1.9 billion people, about one-fourth of the world population.

By 2030, the region is likely to expand even more with India already being the largest country in population size, surpassing China (UN report 2023). Consequently, South Asia has the highest population density in the world.

The majority of its population still resides in rural areas. With only 36 percent of inhabitants living in urban areas, South Asia is one of the least urbanised regions in the world (World Bank, Report 2023).

However, over the next decades, the region is expected to have a faster urbanisation growth and may outpace the rest of the world, the speakers said.

South Asia has been growing at a remarkable rate and has played an integral part in reducing the number of people in the world living under USD $1.9 per day. Yet, this persistent growth has slowed down within the region with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic as countries have experienced sluggish growth and a decline in per capita income, they pointed out.

For instance, about 42 percent of the population in South Asia lives under USD 3.65 per day as of 2021 (World Bank, Report2022). Furthermore, most people classified as extremely poor are from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (Islam, Newhouse, & Yanez-Pagans, 2021).

Besides, according to the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI), all the countries in the South Asian region, inc Bangladesh, have GHI scores which are labelled as serious (data unavailable for Bhutan and Maldives).

On the positive side, there is evidence of a declining trend compared to earlier decades, the papers revealed.

The summit papers stated that the agriculture sector in South Asia provides employment for about 42.4 per cent of the population, with the total labour force participation rate (15-24 years) at 31.4 per and female labour force participation rel at 25.6 per cent as of 2022 (World Bank, 2 In contrast, it is observed that compared year 2011, both the values for the indication have declined from 36.7 and 27.5 respecting (World Bank, 2023).

Interestingly, the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the world gross domestic product (GDP) share is facing a declining trend, especially after 2010 as the share fell from 16.5 percent to 14.2 percent in 2022 (World Bank, 2023).

The world is in the middle of a transition from a traditional manufacturing-intensive economy to a more service-based economy.