NEW DELHI, Feb 25: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has urged India's South Asian neighbours to create business links and interdependencies to forge a formidable economic alliance.

Speaking at an international conclave after a televised address by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Dr Singh virtually echoed the ideas put forth by Mr Aziz. The difference was that he did not mention the resolution of political disputes as a key ingredient in this endeavour, as Mr Aziz had suggested.

"South Asia has been slow to recognize the win-win aspect of economic cooperation," he said. "While India has a set of bilateral relationships with its neighbours that vary in both political and economic intensity, the mere lowering of tariffs and pruning of negative lists does not add up to creating lasting relations of mutual benefit.

"Greater connectivity, both in transport and communication links, and through the opening up of transit routes can transform our sub-continent into a web of economic and commercial links," said Dr Singh. South Asian countries could jointly create reciprocal dependencies for mutual benefit.

"So far this potentially benign process has been hobbled by narrow political calculations. We sincerely want to promote a sense of partnership and the vision of a common destiny in South Asia to realize this region's vast latent potential," Dr Singh said. South Asia should not under-estimate the role of economic inter-dependence in international relations.