IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/wpaper/21796.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade in Services and Investment Flows in South Asia

Author

Listed:
  • Rajesh Chadha

    (National Council of Applied Economic Research)

  • Geethanjali Nataraj

Abstract

Despite being a group of contiguous countries South Asia is one of the least integrated regions in terms of intra-regional investment and trade relations. The share of services in GDP of South Asian countries has increased substantially with South Asia exhibiting a high revealed comparative advantage in commercial services and more particularly in other services including computer and information technology enabled services. Analysis of the FDI inflows in South Asia reveals that the number of total sale deals including Greenfield investments and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) have increased in recent years. Though India is ranked as the second most attractive destination for FDI, South Asian countries, including India, do not rank high in terms of the FDI performance and potential indices and are also ranked low in the global competitiveness index. The study points out the investment constraints in South Asia and cites poor infrastructure and labour market inefficiencies as the bottlenecks in attracting higher FDI inflows. Emphasising the importance of Doha Development Agenda on the one hand, the paper lays out the importance of larger and broader RTAs like Pan Asia Free Trade Agreement (PAFTA) instead of narrow RTAs like SAFTA. The success of SAFTA in enabling regional integration would depend on turning its current shallow constitution in favour of a deep agreement taking into account various behind the border issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajesh Chadha & Geethanjali Nataraj, 2008. "Trade in Services and Investment Flows in South Asia," EABER Working Papers 21796, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:eab:wpaper:21796
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/21796
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aaditya Mattoo, 2000. "Developing Countries in the New Round of GATS Negotiations: Towards a Pro-Active Role," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(04), pages 471-489, April.
    2. Borensztein, E. & De Gregorio, J. & Lee, J-W., 1998. "How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth?1," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 115-135, June.
    3. Mr. Edward M. Graham, 1995. "Foreign Direct Investment in the World Economy," IMF Working Papers 1995/059, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Adlung, Rudolf & Roy, Martin, 2005. "Turning hills into mountains? Current commitments under the GATS and prospects for change," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2005-01, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    5. Brian Aitken & Ann Harrison & Robert E. Lipsey, 2022. "Wages and foreign ownership A comparative study of Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 4, pages 61-87, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150, December.
    7. Haddad, Mona & Harrison, Ann, 1993. "Are there positive spillovers from direct foreign investment? : Evidence from panel data for Morocco," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 51-74, October.
    8. Jaya Prakash Pradhan & Abhinav Alakshendra, "undated". "Overseas Acquisition Versus Greenfield Foreign Investment: Which Internationalization Strategy is better for Indian Pharmaceutical Enterprises?," Working Papers 0607, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID).
    9. NS Siddharthan & Stanley Nollen, 2004. "MNE Affiliation, Firm Size and Exports Revisited: A Study of Information Technology Firms in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 146-168.
    10. Aaditya Mattoo, 2000. "Developing Countries in the New Round of GATS Negotiations: Towards a Pro‐Active Role," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 471-489, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Waldkirch, Andreas & Ofosu, Andra, 2010. "Foreign Presence, Spillovers, and Productivity: Evidence from Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1114-1126, August.
    2. Sule Ozler & Erol Taymaz, 2004. "Does foreign ownership matter for survival and growth? Dynamics of competition and foreign direct investment," ERC Working Papers 0406, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Mar 2004.
    3. Kugler, Maurice, 2000. "The diffusion of externalities from foreign direct investment: theory ahead of measurement," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 23, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    4. Cooray, Arusha & Tamazian, Artur & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2014. "What drives FDI policy liberalization? An empirical investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 179-189.
    5. Rajneesh Narula & André Pineli, 2017. "Multinational Enterprises and Economic Development in Host Countries: What We Know and What We Don’t Know," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, in: Gianluigi Giorgioni (ed.), Development Finance, chapter 6, pages 147-188, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Harrison, Ann & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2010. "Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4039-4214, Elsevier.
    7. Kugler, Maurice, 2006. "Spillovers from foreign direct investment: Within or between industries?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 444-477, August.
    8. Timothy C. Ford & Jonathan C. Rork & Bruce T. Elmslie, 2008. "Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Growth, and the Human Capital Threshold: Evidence from US States," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 96-113, February.
    9. Neil Foster-McGregor, 2012. "Innovation and Technology Transfer across Countries," wiiw Research Reports 380, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    10. Sinani, Evis & Meyer, Klaus E., 2004. "Spillovers of technology transfer from FDI: the case of Estonia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 445-466, September.
    11. Holger Görg & David Greenaway, 2016. "Much Ado about Nothing? Do Domestic Firms Really Benefit from Foreign Direct Investment?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 9, pages 163-189, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Luosha Du & Ann Harrison & Gary Jefferson, 2011. "Do Institutions Matter for FDI Spillovers? The Implications of China’s “Special Characteristics”," Working Papers 33, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School, revised Sep 2012.
    13. Wu Jyun-Yi & Hsu Chih-Chiang, 2008. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Evidence from a Threshold Regression Analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(12), pages 1-10.
    14. Klaus E Meyer & Evis Sinani, 2009. "When and where does foreign direct investment generate positive spillovers? A meta-analysis," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(7), pages 1075-1094, September.
    15. Klein, Michael & Aaron, Carl & Hadjimichael, Bita, 2001. "Foreign direct investment and poverty reduction," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2613, The World Bank.
    16. Sapienza, Elvira, 2010. "FDI and Growth in Eastern Europe: A Sectoral Analysis - Investimenti diretti e crescita in est-Europa: un’analisi settoriale," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 63(4), pages 451-475.
    17. Gordon H. HANSON, 2001. "Should Countries Promote Foreign Direct Investment?," G-24 Discussion Papers 9, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    18. Emmanuel Dhyne & Selen Sarisoy Guerin, 2014. "Outward foreign direct investment and domestic performance : In search of a causal link," Working Paper Research 272, National Bank of Belgium.
    19. Robert E. Lipsey, 2002. "Home and Host Country Effects of FDI," NBER Working Papers 9293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Harrison, Ann E. & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2009. "Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy," MPRA Paper 15561, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade; Services; investment; Flows; South Asia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:wpaper:21796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.