ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: The Council of Ministers (CoM) of Saarc member countries will hold a two-day meeting here to review the progress on finalization of the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) that will come into force on January 1, 2006.

An official source in the commerce ministry told Dawn on Saturday that the CoM meeting was scheduled for November 22-23 in Islamabad to discuss the progress so far made on the four procedural formalities- formation of sensitive lists; rules of origin, revenue loss compensation mechanism and ratification by the all member states.

The main issue of the CoM meeting will be to review the progress made on the exchange of negative lists - items not to be considered for duty reduction under the treaty by the member countries.

The technical committee of experts of the Saarc-member countries had already held five meetings on reciprocal basis in the capitals of the member countries for discussing the initial indicative sensitive lists and to appoint consultant to carry out a study for compensation of revenue loss for the least developed countries - Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The rules of origin prepared by the sub-group on Safta were already discussed at the technical level committee of the member countries, added the official. Earlier, the official said the meeting of the Committee on Economic (CoE) cooperation was scheduled for November 20-21 in Islamabad. The CoE will be represented by the commerce secretaries of the Saarc member countries.

The CoE would discuss at length the progress made at the technical committee level of the Saarc member countries. The CoE would discuss the anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard measures to be dealt in accordance with the WTO principles.

The meeting would also discuss the progress so far made on Safta ministerial council, which will comprise commerce ministers of all member countries. This will be the highest decision making body. The committee would also review the progress made in the areas of special and differential treatment for the LDCs, balance of payment measures, dispute settlement mechanism and enhancement of regional trade.

The Saarc-member countries signed Safta on January 6, 2003 with a pledge to scale down their tariff in two phases to 0-5pc that will come into force on January 1, 2006 and will be fully implemented by December 31, 2015.