South Asian countries must think for enhancing regional cooperation to curb Inflation of Commodity prices: Speakers

The Covid -induced economic slowdown disrupted the global supply chains which further aggravated by the Russia-Ukrainian war. World's economies have been experiencing inflation from the high supply of liquidity, resulted in rapid increases in commodity prices, especially prices of fuel, crops, and fertilizers.

These have created critical challenges for macroeconomic management in developing and emerging economies. In the post-pandemic world's scenario, when all global powers are rethinking their value chains, South Asian countries must think about further enhancing sub-regional cooperation.

Speakers exchanged these views at a conference of South Asian Federation of Accountants(SAFA) on Saturday, 15 October hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, Dhaka, read a media release.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, MP inaugurated the conference as the chief guest while the Adviser to Prime Minister on private industry and investment Salman F Rahman, MP and the State Minister for Planning Dr. Shamsul Alam were present as Special Guests. About 30 delegates from South Asian countries participated in the conference.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said, the development of Bangladesh is an example to the many countries. By 2026 the country will be graduated to better developed economy. To sustain the development growth, we need to boots up our trade among the countries in this region, therefore, regional connectivity is a must.  We have may challenges, however, working together regionally we can go forward, he further said. 

There is no shortage of rationale for increasing regional trade cooperation among South Asian countries, trade between these countries has been steadily increasing especially over the last decade, said former Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr.  Atiur Rahman while he was presenting the keynote paper on Regional Connectivity for Sustainable Growth.

He said, this growth has a much slower pace than the true potential. The trade between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal increased by six times between 2015 and 2019. But still unexploited regional trade potentials for Bangladesh remains to be as high as 93 percent, he added.

To tap the unexploited potentials, South Asian countries need to invest more on improving regional connectivity, he suggested.

Prof Dr. Javed Siddiqui, Alliance Manchester Business School - Accounting and Finance division, UK, keynote speaker of technical session-one said, sustainable finance means 'sustainable' investment like investments in renewable energy.

Citing an example of a research, the keynote presenter Sabbir Ahmed said, there is a strong correlation between the number of accountants working in economies with GDP per capita, and an even stronger correlation with the UN Human Development Index (HDI).