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Perspectives from <strong>India</strong><br />
growth economy has a positive impact on the growth of its neighbors.<br />
This of course is not absolute, and it depends critically on interconnectedness,<br />
which I will touch upon in a moment.<br />
Let me start by saying a little about growth in Asia, in South Asia,<br />
and not just <strong>India</strong>. I recently completed an update on my study on<br />
high growth economies. It turns out that one of the fastest growing<br />
economies in the world was Bhutan between 1982 and 1997. There<br />
have been only 20 such economies in the world, out of all those for<br />
which data is available, and Bhutan was one of them. That growth had<br />
to do with hydropower of course. Another fast growing economy, one<br />
that may surprise you, happens to be Myanmar, which was also among<br />
the fastest growing economies in the world during recent decades. 1<br />
Currently it turns out there are only five (what I call) high growth<br />
economies, or potentially high growth economies in the world. One<br />
of these five happens to be <strong>India</strong>. So the point here is not <strong>India</strong>, or<br />
Bhutan, or Myanmar. The point is that growth poles have an effect on<br />
neighbors, and that some of the fastest growing economies in the world<br />
in recent decades have been in South Asia.<br />
This brings us to interconnectedness. Obviously a necessary condition<br />
for neighbors to benefit from fast growth is that they must be<br />
connected to the fast growing economies; otherwise they could not benefit<br />
from the growth pole, whatever it is. There has been a lot of talk<br />
about the soft part of interconnectedness, such as tariffs and QRs, and<br />
the essay in this collection by Professor Nabi mentions the hard part,<br />
namely infrastructure and highways. You need the connections; without<br />
them you cannot have the benefits. Now one of the thoughts that came<br />
to me is that perhaps in developing this interconnectedness in terms of<br />
infrastructure, we could think of public-private partnerships (PPPs), and<br />
business participation, so that the business interest is widened on both<br />
sides, <strong>Pakistan</strong>i and <strong>India</strong>n. If some of this infrastructure is developed in<br />
a PPP mode, a wider segment of business can benefit from the construction<br />
activity, not just the government.<br />
My third point is also touched upon to some extent in several of<br />
the other chapters in this volume, including those by Professors Nabi<br />
and Husain. The point I want to make here is that it is very important<br />
for those who have a positive view of Indo-<strong>Pakistan</strong> economic relations<br />
to do research, and to look for and publicize the conclusions that come<br />
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