LAHORE, Nov 28: Federal industries, production and special incentives secretary Shahab Khwaja has said removal of trade barriers and promotion of intra-regional trade are the need of the hour to stimulate liberalisation for integration of the Economic Cooperation Organisation region in world economy.

Inaugurating the second two-day meeting of the high-level experts group of ECO countries here on Tuesday morning, he said the ECO states had yet to tap their enormous economic, natural and human resource potential to their capacity for taking their place in the world arena. The potential existed in the form of enormous natural resources in its 7.9 million square kilometre area and over 386 million population. The GDP per capita of the ECO countries was, however, only US$1,548 against the world average of $6,321. The per capita income of ECO member countries was only 1/6th of the world average showing that it still had to go a long way.

Mr Khwaja said the ECO had to play a vital role to foster economic development of member states not only in terms of mutual trade but also in terms of commerce, energy, environment protection and communication. The ECO states were also required to increase efforts for effective utilisation of the industrial potential of the region to contribute to its economic and social development through the establishment of an investment-friendly environment.

ECO deputy secretary general Mustafa Demirezen said the first meeting of the experts group was held in Istanbul in November 2005 before the second ministerial meeting on industry which decided to evolve a comprehensive strategy to promote industrial cooperation in the region. The experts group had already completed the initial work and was starting its second meeting ahead of the third ECO ministerial meeting being held in the provincial metropolis on Nov 30 (tomorrow).

He said the group would review different aspects of the strategy for industrial cooperation besides holding discussions on the plan of action for SME development, transfer of technology, intellectual property rights protection and privatisation.

Later, the group held four technical sessions on standardisation, technology transfer, SME development and intellectual property rights.