SAARC CEC to meet in city next month

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Naim-Ul-Karim
The Committee on Economic Cooperation (CEC) of the SAARC will sit in Dhaka next month to discuss stalled issues and remove the hurdles that pose a challenge to the economic growth of the region, diplomatic sources said.
SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The CEC was constituted on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers at their Ninth Session in the Maldives to formulate and oversee implementation of specific measures, policies and programmes within the SAARC framework to strengthen and enhance intra-regional cooperation in the fields of trade and economic relations.
Sources said high-powered delegations of SAARC member states, led by their commerce/planning secretaries, are expected to take part at the 13th meeting scheduled to be held on November 24-25 in the city.
They said the meeting will focus on a series of issues and initiatives aiming at promoting intra-SAARC trade and enhancing cooperation in core economic areas.
There are some specific agenda for the meeting that include trade cooperation and integration, trade in services under the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), elimination of tariff, non-tariff and para-tariff barriers and formation of SAARC arbitration council, sources said.
They said the draft agreement on Promotion and Protection of Investment and customs cooperation and other measures relating to regional integration are also on the card for discussion.
Progress has been made in a number of agreed areas of economic cooperation in the past and initiatives have been undertaken on a series of 'new areas', but a lot of things is yet to be done towards further improvement in the fields of trade, commerce and investment, a diplomatic source said.
He said the upcoming CEC meeting will lay special emphasis on World Trade Organisation (WTO)-related issues in view of the challenges, which the countries are likely to face in near future in promotion of their economic growth.
Sources said the meeting is also expected to discuss the position of the SAARC countries in export of textiles when the EU safeguard measures on import of Chinese textiles expire in December this year.
They said the CEC is expected to recommend to the SAARC commerce ministers to further intensify the consultation process so as to forge and identify issues of mutual concern on which a SAARC position may be effectively projected.
The SAFTA, sources said, is almost ineffective because of a member country's reluctance to implement the agreement over a dispute with another country.
The CEC meeting is expected to help both Pakistan and India to reach a consensus over the disputed issues as Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee have expressed their commitment in the 14th summit in New Delhi to resolve outstanding issues before the next summit, which is scheduled to be held in the Maldives in April 2008.