It is estimated  that about 37% percent of the world’s 1.1 billion multi-dimensionally poor people live in  South Asia. And an estimated 272 million poor people in the region live in households with at least one undernourished person. 

There is  a strong case to develop MVI for all countries of South Asia based on climate  and other vulnerability indicators so that  these countries could  access  and channelise green finance  to fulfil their SDG goals.

According to information available from the Embassy of India, Beijing more than 100 Chinese companies have established offices/operations in India. Many large Chinese state-owned companies in the field of machinery and infrastructure construction have won projects in India and have opened project offices in India. 

Essentially the world is looking for alternate supply chains which began with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and continues even today with growing trade tensions between the two camps.

One of the impacts of the pandemic in South Asia has been on education. Yet, at least 11 million primary-age and almost 21 million lower secondary-age children in South Asia are not even in school, according to a recent UIS estimate. 

The EU therefore will need to depend on other regions to bridge the manpower gap and  South Asia could be an important source, but global partnerships in skilling will need to happen in a big way.

The South Asian region has much to learn from the ASEAN experience in integrating investment, trade and movement of labour which includes a skilled workforce

In conclusion, it may be said that while South Asia, Central and  West Asia and Pacific Asia showed improvement in sustainability indicators for environment and energy in 2020, they did not do so well in social and governance indicators.

There has been discussion of alternate supply chains being created in India, Indonesia and Vietnam but supply chain issues originating from China are not going to go away in a hurry.

South Asia has no strong trade ties within the region, unlike many parts of Asia, and more particularly the developed parts of Asia, namely Southeast Asia and East Asia. South Asia, therefore, has to formulate its own macroeconomic policies to sustain growth keeping in mind global economic trends.