home > think tank > center for geoeconomic studies > Daily Analysis > Issue Guide: South Asia and the Global Financial Crisis
Email
India, South Asia's economic powerhouse, saw sharply reduced economic growth during the course of the crisis, in part due to reduced demand for Indian exports from major importers like Western Europe and the United States. As a result, the Indian stock market was severely hit, with major indices losing well over 50 percent of their values. The Indian financial sector, however, remained relatively isolated and saw little direct impact from the financial turmoil in many parts of the industrialized world. Lobbying internationally ahead of April 2009 G-20 summit meetings, India pressed for trade openness, and particularly for trade-financing outlays--which world leaders did commit to at the summit. Regionally, experts feared the crisis could foment further turmoil in Pakistan, India's neighbor. Should rising Pakistani debt make the country's government less able to control extremism, they said, the result could be security problems, and potentially economic problems for India and other South Asian countries. These fears were underlined by the late 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which India's government said were linked to Pakistan. In late March 2009, the IMF approved a loan of $847 million to Pakistan.
The following is a list of resources offering background on South Asian economies and analysis on how they might fare in the downturn.
Pre-Crisis Conditions
Optimists and Pessimists
Economics and Politics
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.