ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: The 12th meeting of the Saarc's Committee on Economic Cooperation started here on Saturday to review the progress on South Asia Preferential Trading Arrangement (Sapta)
, South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta), trade facilitation measures, cooperation in transport and matters related to Least Developing Countries (LDCs) and the European Union.
The two-day meeting would do preparatory work for the commerce ministers of the seven Saarc countries who meet here on November 22-23 to discuss important trade and economic issues prior to the forthcoming Saarc summit to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, early in January.
The meeting, presided over by Secretary Commerce, Tasneem Noorani, reviewed the Saarc-European Commission Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and issues pertaining to Saarc High Economic Council and the agenda for the fourth Saarc commerce ministers meeting.
A press conference is scheduled to be held at the end of the commerce ministers meeting on November 23, said commerce ministry officials.
In his opening address, Mr Noorani said he was hopeful that the committee would contribute to the common mission of taking the Saarc process forward, to make South Asia more prosperous and free of human misery, hunger and disease. These objectives, he said, were natural corollary to expansion in trade and human interaction within the Saarc region.
Mr Noorani was sure that the deliberations would result in positive assessment and resolution of all the outstanding issues and pave the way for successful summit at Dhaka.
The Saarc countries, he said, comprised the world's 20 per cent population. Each country has its own heritage, culture, history, while a good number of languages were spoken in the region. Therefore, there was need of concerted efforts to form a conducive atmosphere where "free transit of goods and individuals" was ensured while preserving the identity of each member state.
Sources said issues concerning cooperation in the field of statistics, Saarc trade fares, visa facilitation, a joint strategy for dealing with the new GSP regime and extra concessions to the least developed countries of the block are being discussed in the meeting.
The seven-member bloc comprising Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan, is now going for wider trade and economic cooperation in the region by creating a free trade zone as Safta, they said.
The Safta framework agreement would figure prominently in the commerce ministers meeting. The on-going meeting would give the member states the opportunity to discuss in detail the critical issues and impediments which needed to be removed to give Safta a functional shape.
The Safta framework agreement, signed in the last Saarc summit in January last year in Islamabad, is scheduled to be formally launched on January 1, 2006.
They said the commerce ministers are expected to hammer out their "somewhat different" views on a number of issues and might conclude in working out important guidelines, which the heads of the member countries might adopt in the final declaration of the Saarc summit in Dhaka.
Besides operationalising Safta, some other important issues including cross country customs cooperation, investment, avoidance of double taxation, dispute arbitration, rules of origin of tradable products and revenue compensation mechanism for the least developed partners of the regional group are likely to figure in the meeting.
The negotiations on these issues are already taking place at technical level. The commerce ministers will review the progress and might give policy decisions in areas where the negotiators are facing uphill task, they said.
Technical negotiators for Safta are gathering in Delhi on December 2 for a three-day meeting on their 6th round of talks.
