Abstract
This chapter describes the historical patterns of trade and growth in the region, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) vision and the nature of current BRI investments in South Asia. The chapter also discusses the impediments for achieving the vision in South Asia and presents a direction for how South Asian countries could approach BRI to capitalize on the upcoming opportunity.
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Notes
- 1.
Knight Frank has come up with a Belt and Road Index ranking 67 countries (including China) on six dimensions: economic potential (25%), demographic advantage (20%), infrastructure development (15%), institutional effectiveness (25%), market accessibility (10%) and resilience to natural disasters (5%). Singapore ranked highest on the index and Iraq lowest, with scores of 69.85 and 26.45 respectively.
- 2.
South Asia comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
- 3.
The overall RCI index was estimated for 23 Asian economies in five sub-regions where data is available.
- 4.
The centrality indicator ranks a country’s centrality to global value chains, taking into account direct and indirect trade flows between trading partners in the global production network.
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Afraz, N., Khawar, H. (2019). BRI: Connectivity, Trade, Investment and Politics in South Asia. In: Syed, J., Ying, YH. (eds) China’s Belt and Road Initiative in a Global Context. Palgrave Macmillan Asian Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14722-8_5
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