Indian Ocean pioneered several regional associations in the post-colonial era. Experiments in regional economic cooperation undertaken in sixties and seventies were guided broadly by the philosophy of reducing dependency on the north through south-south cooperation. Their progress, however, was disappointing, given the structural underdevelopment and institutional fragility. Globalization process, paralleled no less by the three megablocs of the north, gave a fresh thrust to regional cooperation in the IOR. Historic developments within the region such as regime change in South Africa and Indian market reforms are equally significant in hastening the integration process. The shift from closed Regionalism to New Regionalism is too evident. No other decade in the post-war era had witnessed such a closer economic engagement among the IOR countries as during the past decade. Mutual trade complimentarities and immense investment potentialities exist, as analysts quantified in this volume to deepen cooperation in IOR. But the rich potentialities of the region are poorly matched by requisite capabilities. The combined will to translate complimentarities into working strategies is feeble, if not altogether absent. Geopolitical equations, infrastructure disabilities, dependency constraints, regime instabilities, etc. continue to what the deepening process of regional cooperation in IOR, as in the past. Nevertheless, a trend is set in motion by initiating open regionalism to meet global changes.
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