Common currency in South Asia: An optimalist assessment (Chapter 11)

Abstract

Even as there appears to be a general downturn of regional integration and cooperation initiatives post-BREXIT, the South Asian conundrum on regional cooperation remains complex, as meaningful cooperation has eluded the regional countries, despite their being great potentialities. As the SAARC process remains stuck, any deliberation on more ambitious planks for regional cooperation seems overly optimistic. However, such a scenario also offers us a scope for contemplation in the absence of high expectations of the relative merits and demerits of some ideas which were brought on the SAARC table at some point, only to be relegated to the systemic abyss of the institution again. The chapter explores the ideas and possibility of regional cooperation in South Asia on monetary matters of which common currency seems a distant idea, but there is enough ground for an optimal understanding on monetary cooperation.