Further trade liberalisation under SAFTA in the offing

Trade and Economic Affairs Ministers from eight South Asian countries will meet in Thimpu next week to decide on further trade liberalisation under the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement, sources said.
Before the meeting titled 'SAFTA Ministerial Council', the committee of experts comprising high-level trade officials will discuss the degree of trade liberalisation in goods and services.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan are the members of the SAFTA.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed will head the Bangladesh delegation in the council meeting.  
The agenda of the upcoming meeting, scheduled for July 24, includes reduction of sensitive list of products, implementation of the SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services (SATIS), and duty-free access of products of interest of least developed countries by developed member-states.
Besides, the issue of further relaxation of rules of origin may also be discussed in the meetings of committee of experts though it is not included in the agenda.
Presently, the member-states of the SAFTA need to make value addition by 30 per cent and bring change in tariff heading (CTH) to get tariff preference under the SAFTA agreement.
A senior Commerce Ministry official told the FE Thursday there was a previous decision that rules of origin be further relaxed to help facilitate intra-SAARC trade.
But, he said, the issue was not included in the meeting agenda since many member-states are yet to make any comment on it.
He said the committee of experts may discuss the issue in the meeting and may talk ways of further relaxation of rules of origin. The official said reduction of sensitive list of products by member-states by further 30 per cent will top the agenda of the meeting.
Presently, Afghanistan's sensitive list contains 850 products, Bangladesh's one 987 products for least developed countries and 993 for developing member-states and Bhutan has 150 items.
After offering duty-free access to all LDC products, the Indian sensitive list for the LDCs contains 25 items, mainly tobacco and wine and 614 products for developing countries. The Maldives has only 154 items for both LDCs and developing nations, Nepal 998 items in sensitive list for LDCs and 1,036 for non-LDCs and Pakistan 936 items in sensitive list for both LDCs and non-LDCs.
The council meeting will also try to find out ways of implementation of SATIS, an agreement on trade in services which was signed more than three years back. The trade official said the meeting will also discuss about providing duty-free access of products of export interest of LDCs.
He said the objective of the SAFTA would not be achieved unless the member-states come forward with further liberalisation of trade.
"Many of the SAFTA member-states remain far behind in implementation of decisions taken in past councils."