South Asia is at an early stage of globalization. Average applied tariffs in South Asia were 11.8% in 2022, the highest of any region, against a world average of 8.6% and an East Asia and the Pacific average of 6.1%. Gains from trade have far from being realized. It is the least integrated region in the world, with regional goods trade forming only 5.8% of total trade in 2020, compared with 21.1% for ASEAN and 35.9% for East Asia. Not only is South Asia not integrated with the rest of the world, it is even less integrated with its own neighbourhood. While the rest of the world is getting into more sophisticated forms of cutting trade costs and integrating better with the neighbours, South Asia is still struggling with first generation and basic trade reforms.
There is no early monitoring mechanism for trade policy changes in South Asian countries. The existing trade databases such as the WTO Trade Reviews, the Global Trade Alert Database, and the temporary trade barriers database by the World Bank only offer infrequent updates and summarized data for a small set of countries. Trade monitoring mechanisms are essential for encouraging South Asian countries to tap into intra-regional trade and to dial down their increasingly protectionist policies.
The Trade Sentinel (https://www.tradesentinel.org) will fill important gaps in monitoring trade policy actions for South Asian countries. It seeks to provide real time alerts, trends, and analysis of trade investment policy changes. This tool and this topic are more and more important for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), through the Regional Economic Programme Asia (SOPAS) to contribute to the discussion shaping important developments in international trade.
Read more about the details in the corresponding outcome document to the launch event.
