South Asia needs to pool resources for the regional development: Governor

Central bank governor Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada emphasised on pooling resources from outside the South Asian region, given limited fiscal space in the countries in the region.

Addressing a three-day brainstorming workshop on 'Raising Resources for Social Economic and Infrastructure projects and pricing SDF financial services', organised by SAARC Development Fund (SDF) in New Delhi, India on February 12-14, he suggested for two windows of funding–general and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) specific and pricing of the products not to compete with concessional global fund but to be below market rate.

During three day SDF workshop, the major agendas for the discussion were fund raising as well as use of SDF resources in economic, social and infrastructure projects in this region.

Governor Khatiwada being concurrently the chair of SAARCFINANCE also raised the issue of establishing institutional relationship between SAARCFINANCE and SDF for creating synergy in their initiatives.

Senior government officials of SAARC member states, representatives from the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank as well as experts also attended the programme.