The Importance (Significance) of Regionalism and its Role inDevelopment

Today, the geographic factor of regional convergence has gained prominence in mostcountries of the word. Considering the globalization of the world economy and theneed for more economic and political convergence among countries of a region, thereis hardly any country in the world that has not considered regional convergence in itsdevelopment plans.Countries located in a specific regional group can protect their interests eliminatetheir weaknesses and problems more easily.In Europe, regionalism has proven to be successful and many other areas of theworld are following its example. “Nafta” in North America, “Mercosur” in LatinAmerica, “Asean” in Southeast Asia, “SAARC” in South Asia, and a multitude ofother organizations all indicate countries’ interests in regionalism. Although in theregion of our country, there has been an organization for some time OPEC- it hasrarely met success since the member countries do not share common interests.With the recent events in the Persian Gulf during the past two years, commoninterests have arisen among the countries of this region-especially in the matter ofenergy. It seems that by reducing the former conflicts, if the necessary steps are takentowards economic and political convergence, regional and inter- regional co-operationwill be enhanced with organizations such as the world trade Organization in order toreach our goals.