External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday said that India's size is an asset that can be leveraged by its smaller neighbours for the benefit of all countries in the region.
"The myth that because of the asymmetries in our economies, the smaller countries do not benefit from close economic integration within South Asia must be discarded," Sinha said.
The minister said this while delivering a talk at the Woodrow Wilson Center here. The address was christened: 'After the SAARC Summit: Vision for South Asia.'
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Sinha sought to allay fears that New Delhi seeks to dominate the smaller nations of the region by calling for economic cooperation.
"India has no desire but to be able to build economic relations aimed at mutual benefit," he said, adding that there are many examples of how South Asian cooperation can create win-win situations.
One such example, he said, was the free trade agreements with Nepal and Sri Lanka that, he said, have resulted in the narrowing of trade deficit of both these countries with India.
In this context, he said that the signing of the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement is an important milestone in South Asia.
"This is a first step in realising a broader vision of a South Asian Economic Union, with a single currency," Sinha said.
He said that the region cannot afford to remain an "isolated prisoner of political doubts, differences and discords" of the past.
"By coming together, we will not only be able to address all our individual challenges, (but) we will find ourselves more capable of dealing with them individually and collectively," he said.
About 100 people, most of them academics and scholars, turned up for the event. Among those present included Ambassador William Clark and India's envoy to the US Lalit Mansingh.
"Sinha's ascendance to the office of external affairs minister is expected to bring, inter alia, economy on to the forefront of the Indian diplomacy," said Lee H Hamilton, director of the Center as he introduced Sinha.
