South-south and triangular cooperation - UNESCAP

With the rise of emerging countries in the Asia and Pacific region as growth poles of the world economy, South-South cooperation (SSC) and triangular development cooperation (TDC) have become viable strategies for development.

A recent UNESCAP report identified, inter-alia, the following area as promising areas of intervention:

Regional Cooperation for Moving up the Value Chain in Textiles and Clothing

The textiles and clothing sector has emerged as one of the leading manufacturing industries for many South Asian economies regarding contribution to output, employment, and exports. However, exports from South Asian countries are constrained by a number of demand-side factors such as tariffs, non-tariff, and regulatory barriers, in addition to supply-side barriers such as lack of scale economies, human capital, and infrastructure constraints, the high cost of inputs and lack of access to credit and trade facilitation. Therefore, a multipronged strategy is needed.

There is considerable potential for South Asia to develop as a global textile and clothing hub through enhanced regional cooperation in trade, investment, skills development and technology transfer. Building intraregional investments, improving cross-border cooperation and trade facilitation as well as providing access to the transfer of technology and skills are all important elements in this connection.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) would be an effective means of channeling the required resources to further develop the vertical production structures in the subregion and would enable a higher degree of country- level specialization.

The emergence of the services sector

As the most dynamic sector driving economic growth in the subregion has been accompanied by the growing importance of those sectors in their countries’ economies. exports consist primarily of the computer, communications and other related services (or ICT services. Travel (tourism) is another area of strength for many countries in South and South-West Asia.

For more information: http://sswa.unescap.org/meeting/documents/SSWA_Report_Book.pdf