COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

SAARC to reaffirm faith in free trade

The tenth summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Colombo is likely to adopt a "framework treaty", reaffirming the member-nations' political commitment to the South Asia Free Trade Area or SAFTA concept, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgammar said today.

The leaders would sign the treaty at the next summit in Kathmandu, Nepal, he told a news conference.

Asked about the Male declaration's affirmation to introduce SAFTA by 2001, as against the original plan to have it between 2000 and 2005, Kadirgamar said the "dates and nuances" were left to be fine-tuned. He said, "We will be looking at reaching there by 2001."

He said the report of a group of eminent people appointed by the SAARC on SAFTA was "too broad and elastic".

The group had recommended that it was not practical to implement SAFTA before 2008 or 2010.

He said the theme of the three-day summit, to be held here from Wednesday, would be "the role of SAARC in the changing world" and economic issues, like south Asia's collective response to the global economic changes, would dominate the meeting.

"The summit is primarily an economic summit," he said and added this was the first time that a SAARC summit was going to concentrate on economic issues.

"We feel it is time for the member-states to assess the status of SAARC as a group in the outside world," Kadirgammar said and added that the summit would address some of the challenges facing the region, like the fall-out of the financial crises in southeast Asia.

It would also look at issues like debt, equal distribution of benefits from liberalisation and globalisation of economies, the role of the World Trade Organisation and SAARC's relation to new trade blocs, coming up all over the world, he added.

He said the summit would also look at a number of areas to increase cooperation within the region.

He said the summit would also look at a number of areas to increase co-operation within the region.

Rejecting suggestions that Indo-Pakistan differences were hampering improved economic ties among the SAARC nations, he said. There was a "strong degree of commitment" among the SAARC leaders to advance economic cooperation in the region.

Another area which the summit could look at is the desirability of joint studies on important economic issues, he added.

He agreed that not enough progress had been made in the area of sapta on issues like removal of non-tariff barriers and rules of origin and hard bargaining lay ahead.

Asked about statements by Pakistani leaders that economic co-operation in SAARC could not be achieved in this atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion, Kadirgamar said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's attitude on the issue was "very encouraging".

Kadirgamar said he got the impression after meeting the Pakistan premier recently that Islamabad would be prepared to "do its best" to improve economic co-operation.

As to proposed bilateral talks between the Indian and Pakistan prime ministers on the sidelines of the summit, he said the two leaders had expressed a desire to meet in Colombo.

"As hosts, we will provide all logistical necessities, beyond that, Sri Lanka has no role," he said.

He said the history of Indo-Pakistan relations was a "sad feature" of the history of the region, and he did not think the other SAARC nations could pressurise them to bury the hatchet and get on with the job of economic development.

He also ruled out contentious bilateral issues being discussed under the SAARC forum and noted that the SAARC charter did not allow it. "Amendment of the charter is simply not on," he said.

UNI