Daily Times

Pakistan chaired the 13th Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) Summit in March 2017, which is why as per custom Prime Minister Imran Khan is going to open the 14 Summit this time (on Tuesday), which is going to be chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The ECO’s founding principles include promotion of effective regional cooperation with a special focus on communication, trade, culture and connectivity. This time, because of the pandemic, the Summit assumes extraordinary importance since all countries look forward to hearing other’s experiences to try and learn what they can, especially when it comes to going back to pre-pandemic levels of international trade.

And it seems only fitting that PM Imran Khan gets to open this year’s session since Pakistan has clearly done much better than most other countries when it comes to containing the coronavirus. The prime minister’s policy of smart lockdowns was an impressive success because it enabled the government to keep unnecessary movement in check while still keeping enough of the economy moving to protect the most vulnerable sections of society. That way it became possible to lift the lockdown earlier in Pakistan than in other places. And that in turn enabled us to capture export markets whose traditional suppliers were still shut down, which did a world of good to our manufacturing sector and national reserves.

Regional groupings like ECO have become very important as the 21st century is progressing and the world is no longer split between two superpowers or even completely dominated by just one. The emergence of a number of independent countries, dubbed ‘the rise of the rest’ by much of the foreign press, has been made possible by just such alliances. For after everyone gets together every two years to discuss broad arrangements, they remain in touch and undertake different forms of investments in and partnerships with other countries. This is a very pleasant trend since we spent much of the last half-century with a US-centric foreign policy. As the world changes so must we and our success with the pandemic is giving our leaders the opportunity to make our case at different forums of varying importance. If rest of the members are able to learn from Pakistan and confront the virus better in their own countries, there is the likelihood of enhanced trade across the region and beyond; which only underscores the importance of the organisation. *