ISLAMABAD: The Investment Promotion Agencies (IPA) of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) on Monday proposed a strategy for the promotion of trade and investment among member countries.

The IPA forum, set up by the ECO ministerial meeting of finance and economy in Tehran in December 2008, held its first meeting in Islamabad yesterday after eight years.

The proposed ECO regional trade and investment strategy is purposed for cooperation among member countries to strengthen regional market, create wealth in the region and enhance competitiveness through increased production, value-added creation, and trade and investment inflows in the region.

The components of multi-dimensional, regional trade and investment strategy as identified by the IPA meeting include image building, opportunity analysis, reforms and improvement in regulatory framework, investment generation, implementation of ECO key agreements, removal of constraints and barriers to FDI, special FDI incentives, facilitating linkages, SME development, industrial diversification, joint ventures, rope of IPA and ECO business council.

The meeting emphasised that investment promotion measures need to be adopted within the broader framework of an overarching strategy, which covers the overall investment climate, the investment-support institutions, and investment policy and package. The success of the strategy also depends a lot on strong political commitment and leadership.

Since, foreign trade and investment plays a vital role in economic development, one of the objectives of ECO – as embodied in the ‘Treaty of Izmir’ – is to take measures towards progressive removal of trade barriers within ECO region and expansion of intra and inter-regional trade.

However, ECO remains one of the least integrated regions in the world and has a low share in global trade and investment, it was felt.

Pakistan is the first country to host the first meeting of IPA comprising Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan.

The IPA meeting had been postponed several times. The Regional Planning Council (RPC) of ECO during a meeting in Tehran in 2013 had renewed its call to member countries to volunteer to host the meeting of IPA.

Pakistan took the initiative and volunteered to host the first meeting, and the task was entrusted to the Board of Investment (BoI) to make preparation for the meeting. Secretary, BoI, Azher Ali Choudhry while welcoming participants, acknowledged efforts of the ECO secretariat.

The BoI Secretary in his address said that in order to increase the level of intra-ECO trade and investment as well as increase the share of ECO in global trade and investment inflows, it is essential that member countries adopt liberal trade and investment policies and put in place the right institutional mechanism.

“The proposed strategy provides a framework for member states to achieve that end. There is also a need for creating greater awareness among the stakeholders in the region about the need for trade and investment liberalisation and specify benchmarks and timeframe to measure progress for tangible results,” he added.

Published in Dawn December 27th, 2016