South Asia’s ‘Historic Elections’ May Spur Economic Integration

South Asia’s “historic elections” in the past 18 months have advanced democracy in the region and may spur economic integration, said Sheel Kant Sharma, secretary general of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

The South Asian grouping, called Saarc, which includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Bhutan, has struggled to give a boost to the free- trade pact they adopted in 2004. Trade between Saarc members is 5 percent of the countries’ total, compared with 55 percent among European Union nations, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“There is democracy everywhere in South Asia now and so the confluence increases at overall policy levels,” Sharma said in an interview at the Saarc headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal, on June 24. “All the countries are wedded to the principle of growing together.”

Since last year, Nepal ended its 240-year-old monarchy, the Maldives overthrew Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30-year regime, Pakistan got a new government after almost a decade’s reign by coup leader Pervez Musharraf and Bangladesh held national polls in December for the first time since 2001. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won re-election in May.

Even though trade in the region has been frustrated by hostility between nuclear weapons-armed India and Pakistan, the two governments have pledged to restart peace talks by next month. Saarc members are also working on a plan to cut non- tariff barriers, improve transport connectivity and reduce their “sensitive list” -- items that are banned from trading -- by at least 25 percent by the end of the year, Sharma said.

‘Stumbling Block’

“There is an attempt to get the economic agenda going in Saarc,” said N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the Center for Media Studies in New Delhi. “But bilateral problems between India and Pakistan and unrest within some member states will be a stumbling block.”

Saarc was established in 1985 to improve livelihoods in a region that is home to half the world’s poor. After 24 years, the nations in Saarc, where a quarter of the world’s population lives, contribute less than 2 percent to global commerce.

Economic progress in South Asia has suffered because of the rivalry between India and Pakistan, which account for four- fifths of the region’s $1.3 billion economy. India accuses Pakistan of supporting armed extremists in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-dominated state. Pakistan denies it and says it offers only moral support to separatists.

Peace Talks

India’s Prime Minister Singh said June 17 that peace talks with Pakistan may start by July. Pakistan’s foreign office said June 25 that talks between the two sides were “unavoidable” for “durable” peace in the region. Talks between the two sides were stalled following the Nov. 26-29 attacks in India’s financial capital of Mumbai that killed 166 people. India blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba for carrying out the assault.

Saarc members also face internal problems. Pakistan and Afghanistan are grappling with the growing influence of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In Nepal, political chaos has flared again as Maoist supporters staged nationwide demonstrations after their leader Puspa Kamal Dahal resigned as prime minister last month.

“As part of the political process, there have been differences in Nepal, but they are trying to sort them out within the political system,” said Sharma. “In Pakistan, the radicals were beaten in the elections and what came forward was a democratic government.”

Tamil Tigers

Similarly in Bangladesh, elections heralded a new government, “which is very reassuring,” Sharma said. In the Maldives, the long incumbency of the previous administration “led to popular discontent” and that has changed, while Sri Lanka has been able to deal with its problems after defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels, the secretary general added.

“I would view the electoral developments in the region as positive and an agent for change,” Sharma said.

He said member countries are working to harmonize customs- clearing procedures and have backed plans to put consignments originating in Saarc countries and destined for other Saarc nations on a fast track in terms of time taken for clearance.

Saarc has also identified developing ten regional road corridors, five railway corridors, two inland waterway corridors, ten maritime corridors and three aviation gateways to improve transport links in the region, Sharma said.

The New Delhi-based Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said bolstering democracy across South Asia would give a fillip to Saarc, and that if tariffs were slashed, intra-regional trade could rise by as much as four times to $100 billion in five years.

Source: bloomberg.com

Maldivian filmmaker has SRK on her wish-list

Maldivian filmmaker Fathimath Nahula, whose film Youssuf kick-starts the four-day South Asian Film Festival (SAFF) on Friday, has come to India with two things on her wish-list.

First, to see her film about the challenges of a deaf and dumb boy set the ball rolling. Second, to meet Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

"I really hope to meet him [Shah Rukh Khan]. Can someone arrange it for me?" Fathimath asked.

"While the other two Khans [Salman and Aamir] are popular in the Maldives, Shah Rukh is the biggest sensation," said Fathimath, whose most recent film Yousuf has been pegged as the highest revenue grosser in the Maldives.

Speaking about Yousuf, she said the 173-minute film underlined the steely determination of a deaf and dumb boy and his right to live in normalcy along with the rest.

"We received a terrific response in Maldives. But the film's theme is universal. We are sure it will strike a chord with the viewers here," Fathimath said.

She said films from both countries were similar on several counts.

"Most of our mainstream films are musicals, too, and a lot of our films have a romantic storyline, like the ones in India," Fathimath said.

Hassan Sinar, producer of Yousuf who accompanied Fathimath to Goa, said the film industry in Maldives was years behind India as far as the technical aspect of filmmaking was concerned.

"Technically we are not so qualified. But we are picking up now. It's a relatively new industry in Maldives. We are making an average of five to six films a year back home. Nothing compared to the film industry here," Sinar said.

Source: sify.com

'Huge' oil terminal planned for Maldives

Maldives National Oil Company (MNOC) is planning to build a 6-million cubic metres (m³) onshore oil terminal on the one of the Maldive islands.

The crude and petroleum terminal is being planned on 20 hectares of land at a total investment of $150 million, according to MNOC's Managing Director Ahmed Muneez.

About 75% of the storage capacity will be dedicated to storing crude oil while the remaining 25% will be for clean and bunker products, said Muneez.

The terminal will have either two jetties or two Single Buoy Moorings (SBM), coupled with full blending facilities, Muneez told participants at a bunker course organised by August Energy in Singapore.

Construction work on the terminal is expected to start towards the end of this year and could take one and a half years to complete, Muneez told Bunkerworld.

Five islands have been shortlisted by MNOC for the project.

MNOC is currently inviting international fuel oil traders to commit to lease agreements of the storage capacity for the medium-term, he said.

''We're still scouting for partners,'' he said. ''The storage capacity will be able to sell refined products to regional markets to take advantage of arbitrage and trading plays.''

The twenty-six atolls of Maldives encompass a territory featuring 1190 islands, of which 202 islands are inhabited.

The archipelago is about 450 kilometres (km) southwest of India and 700 km west of Sri Lanka. It is known for its scenic beaches and high-end tourist resorts.

Source: portworld.com

Look forward with fear as global warming threatens little nations

The message coming out of the UN is brutally simple: the developing world is being called upon to pay for most of the sins of the industrialized world.

The luxurious life styles of the rich, the carbon dioxide emissions from burning petroleum in gas-guzzling vehicles, and the gradual degradation of the earth's environment have triggered a devastating phenomenon: global warming.

"Climate change may be one of the biggest threats faced by mankind," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned last week

By next year, more than 50 million people worldwide are expected to be displaced -- categorized as environmental refugees-- because of rising sea levels, desertification and floods.

"There are well-founded fears that the number of people fleeing untenable environmental conditions may grow expontentially as the world experiences the effects of climate change and other phenomena," warns Janos Bogardi, director of the UN University's Institute for Environment and Human Security.

China, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya are in danger of losing thousands of square kilometres of desert and farmlands due to desertification.

The World Bank says the Yemeni capital of Sana'a has doubled its population since 1962, currently standing at over 900,000. But the acquifer providing water is falling six metres a year, and may run dry by 2010.

New Zealand has offered to provide safe haven to about 11,600 citizens of the low lying Pacific island of Tuvalu -- if and when that country is overwhelmed by sea level rise.

Last week the General Assembly, the highest policy making body at the United Nations, turned its attention to climate change and renewable energy. The meeting was a precursor to a major international conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

But delegates were treated to a rare spectacle of a tiny island nation battling global warming -- even though it played no significant role in causing it-- warning about the dangers of climate change.
The Maldives, which is threatened with extinction due to rising sea levels, is living on borrowed time -- and on outright grants.

Faced with the threat of being wiped off the face of the earth, the island nation is fighting back to stay alive.
The Maldivian Vice President Mohamed Waheed pointed out that the average height of the country's 2,000 tropical islands was a mere 1.5 metres above sea level making them highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.

But he said the Maldives was shoring up its defences in its most populous islands. A sea wall built around Male, which protected the country from the 2004 tsunami, had cost $60 million: a tidy sum compared with the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) of about $1 billion.

The funding for the project came as outright grants from Japan, a traditional aid donor to the Maldives.
Since every one of its 2,000 islands cannot be protected by costly sea walls, the government has been encouraging inhabitants to move to larger and safer islands.

But there is strong resistance, says Waheed, because most of the inhabitants want to live and die in a land where their ancestors were buried. At least one luxury resort, with a seven star rating, has already gone carbon neutral.

It is using deep-sea water to cool its air conditioning units and turning its organic waste into fertilizer.
Asked why the Maldives, which is hardly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions would bother to go carbon neutral, Waheed said the country's answer was: "the time has come for global leadership."
And that leadership is being offered by the Maldives.

Addressing the General Assembly last week, Ban Ki-moon cited several examples of countries undergoing dramatic transformations of their global energy markets.

During the oil crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Iceland was completely dependent on gasoline supplies. But today it generates virtually all its energy from geothermal and hydro-electricity.

A country that has been devastated by the global financial crisis, Iceland is far ahead of most Western nations in the race for a cleaner environment. Denmark has been described as another pioneer of carbon neutrality while Brazil has shown its potential for biomass as fuel.

As the world's leading producer of photovoltaic cell, China has doubled its windpower capacity five years in a row. "The green economy is the wave of the future," says the secretary-general. But how many will heed his advice?

Source: sundaytimes.lk

Global Downturn Impacts Mauritius and Maldives

The luxury island destinations of Mauritius and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, both of which rely heavily on tourism from European markets, have been negatively impacted by the global downturn.

According to the latest data from STR Global, both destinations experienced occupancy drops for the first four months of the year, as their main European source markets were hit by recession, falling employment and declining consumer confidence.

Mauritius and the Maldives are renowned for their upscale to luxury image, which is well-represented in their hotel offering. STR Global tracks the performance of

Whilst occupancy levels, at the 23 hotels in Mauritius and 17 hotels in the Maldives that STR tracks, declined, average room rates increased slightly when measured in local currency.

Mauritius’s occupancy fell 16 percentage points to 62.5%, compared to the Maldives’ 15.1-percentage points decline to 70.5% for January through April 2009.

Average room rates grew 2.8% and 6.9% in Mauritius and Maldives, respectively. Unfortunately, the rate increases could not hold up the revenue per available room performances, which declined 18% in Mauritius and 12% in the Maldives.

Comparing the ADR results in euro terms, the currency used by the majority of visitors to both islands, a different picture emerges.

Maldives took the top spot with an increase of 26% to €704, compared to Mauritius’s 3% decrease to €184 for the first four months of this year.

The currency fluctuation and weakening Euro against the Maldivian-Rufiyaas made Maldives more expensive to its European clientele. The Maldives had an ADR premium of €520 over Mauritius for year-to-April 2009 compared to the same period last year.

Source: asiatraveltips.com