Abstract
Regionalism (regional integration) has gained much attention particularly amongst the peripheral regions to address the challenges of globalization imposed by the core regions, to tackle the issues of underdevelopment and to arrest the process of further marginalization. Central and South Asia are the least integrated regions in the world. However the regions possess greatest potential for regionalism due to a number of factors including huge energy resources but high differences in resource endowment, trade and economic complementarity, vast but contiguous landmass, gravitational pull of geographical proximity on movement of goods, common culture and history, and having identical political and economic challenges. Basic structure for regional integration has been framed on the principles of open regionalism in the forms of Regional Trade Arrangements/Agreements (RTAs). The framework of Regional Integration Arrangements (RIAs) includes RTAs regarding energy trade i.e. agreements on pipelines and trade in goods i.e. bilateral, trilateral and multilateral trade agreements. The process will gain momentum by prioritizing economic interests over the regional geopolitics shaped by the extra-regional states having political stakes in the region. Regional states need to focus on the ‘functional area’ i.e. energy, for providing base to regional integration inter and intra-regionally.