Introduction

South Asia comprises the states of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan. It is an area of enormous opportunity, staggering diversity but also pervasive poverty and instability. Home to 1.64 billion people — roughly 24 per cent of the world’s population — South Asia is an important and emerging market that has averaged an impressive rate of real GDP growth of six per cent over the last 20 years (International Labor Organization, 2013). The region’s economic importance is heightened by its geographical position adjacent to China and South East Asia and astride trade routes between these markets and those of Africa and Europe. Consequently, it is unsurprising that the rest of the world has started to wake up and take notice of the region, particularly following the 2008 global financial crisis when emerging markets in Asia and Latin America were looked to as the engine rooms of global economic growth. While the economies of North America and Europe languished with high levels of debt, low or negative growth and spiralling unemployment, the economies of Asia and the Pacific experienced an economic renaissance with impressive rates of economic growth and investment. This led some to speculate about the relative decline of Western economic and political dominance and the advent of an ‘Asian century’ which, for many, meant a Chinese century.