South-South cooperation – policy and practice by the Export Import Bank of China

Abstract

The half a century old concept of South-South cooperation got new momentum when northern cooperation weaken by the financial crisis and with the rise of south. Advanced southern countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa are advocating actively for south to south cooperation through their increasing aid, investment and trade. Among the southerners China headlined more with its fast growing economic strength and pouring financial assistance to southern developing countries through aid, trade and investment notably in Asia. Most of these financing are improving necessary infrastructures, increasing productive capacity and contributing to economic growth. But there are gaps in policy and practice while competing for benefit from business initiatives. This is affecting quality of South-South cooperation. In the case of Bangladesh this study found that the environmental guideline of Chinese government is not carefully considered by Exim Bank 1 of China in some projects. This paper suggests that the effort needs to be strengthened by the southern governments for getting better result from South-South cooperation. The aspects of competitiveness and complementarity, conceptual clarity and scope of cooperation should be discussed continuously.