South Asian Business news and information

The name of the blog clearly indicates that it is about South Asia. Currently, SAARC (The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation ) has 7 members- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan may be included in near future. China has border with some of these countries and in the recent years China has expressed a strong interest towards this region. These countries will be the main scope of this blog. I will try to cover various aspects of South Asian Business. Around 20% of world population lives in this region and South Asia is among the poorest regions of the world. However, this scenario is slowly changing as Indian economy is moving very fast with the wings of its success in Information Technology (IT) sector. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh are pushing for success in this sector too. South Asia is an agricultural based region while the push towards industrialization is there. Free market economy has been embraced by most of the countries in the last 10-15 years. Privatization is still an ongoing process in almost all of the countries of South Asia. Outsourcing in India seems to be the most important thing to the business community outside of South Asia. However, many of us simply forget the fact that it is one of the largest markets in the world in terms of population size. For example, in terms of mobile phone growth South Asia is among the top fastest regions. South Asia is still an unexplored territory in terms of business opportunities and tourism. It gets coverage in the international media often for the negative reasons (religious tension in India, flood in India and Bangladesh, enmity between India and Pakistan etc). I believe that South Asia has almost the same potential as its neighbors like China and ASEAN countries. In the next days, I like to present this potential and opportunities. I want to make this blog as much interactive as possible and that is why I invite all visitors to turn this blog into a truly discussion forum.