Connecting people and minds is key to have a successful regional cooperation like Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or BBIN Motor Vehicle deal or SAARC.

“All the infrastructures whether hard or soft, will come to no use if they are not user-friendly and do not adequately connect people and minds,” said former Bangladesh envoy to China and Chairman of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) Munshi Faiz Ahmad.

He was speaking Wednesday at a two-day-long regional seminar on ‘importance of BRI and BBIN for South Asia’ organized in the city.

He said SAARC must be brought back to life and seriously reinvigorated and for that, leaders of the member countries must show their will to take the region forward guided by their collective wisdom.

BRI and BBIN are big projects of great significance in South Asia and both of them promise a great deal in terms of infrastructure, energy, trade, connectivity, transit, tourism and other areas, said Nepalese expert Nishchol N Pandey.

The Director of Centre for South Asian Studies in Nepal said rising India and China is critical for South Asia, which faced certain difficulties in the 20th century due to civil war China and colonization of India.

“Surely there are challenges but the promise that holds are of greater value,” he added.

South Asian countries are the members of SAARC, BIMSTEC, BCIM, BBIN, SCO, BRI and other initiatives but are there any overlaps, he questioned.

Small South Asian countries can cooperate among themselves to build synergies and interconnectivity to link all these projects and benefit us more, he added.

Director of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Christian Echle said “With the term, Indo-Pacific gaining prominence in the rhetoric of global politics, South Asian countries need to work together to increase connectivity not only within the region but also with other regions.”

He said with the economic giants bringing forward two different initiatives to bring about the development in the region, maintaining a balance between the two countries can become a challenging task.