 |
Kathmandu Friday January 04, 2002 Paush 20, 2058.
|
Summit opens today
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 3:The 11th Summit of South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) begins here tomorrow with the main emphasis
on the economic integration of the seven member nations.
Though terrorism is one of the hottest issues in
the region at present, the meeting of the Council of Ministers concluded Thursday evening
adopting all the reports on regional economic integration put forward by the Standing
Committee.
Now that the Council of Ministers has adopted
the possible issues to be tabled at the three-day Summit of the Heads of State and
Government, the final show of this regional jamboree is kicking off tomorrow at the
Birendra International Convention Centre.
Prime Minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee,
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul
Gayoom arrived here today. Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and Bangladeshi
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia are arriving here tomorrow to attend the Summit, which opens
tomorrow afternoon.
Chairman of the Bhutanese Council of Ministers
Khandu Wangchuk has been in the capital since yesterday.
The 22nd meeting of the Council of Ministers
Thursday gave green signal to all the reports ‘prescribed’ by the Standing
Committee, according to Pushkar Rajbhandari, Joint Secretary at the Foreign Ministry and
Spokesperson for the Summit.
This will form the basis of the Kathmandu
Declaration, which will be announced at the end of the Summit on Sunday.
The Council of Ministers today adopted various
reports, chief among them being the report of the Standing Committee, report of the SAARC
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the analytical report of the SAARC Secretary General
on strengthening SAARC as an institution, Rajbhandari later told The Kathmandu Post.
In its report, the Standing Committee has asked
the member states to implement UN Security Council Resolution No. 1373 that primarily asks
UN member states to freeze the accounts of terrorists and their organisations. The
Committee has also sought the adoption of the report of Group of Eminent Persons on
creating a South Asian Economic Union, and has agreed that the draft treaty of South Asian
Free Trade Area (SAFTA) be signed by the end of this year.
Earlier, during the regular briefing,
Rajbhandari in response to a question, said the main focus of the 11th Summit was on
regional economic integration rather than terrorism. His assertion is significant as some
sections of the India media have been reporting in the past few days that the main focus
of the Summit will be on terrorism. The Spokesperson, however, was quick to add that since
the September 11 strikes on the US, SAARC has been attaching a lot of importance to the UN
resolution.
The Council of Ministers once again reviewed the
intra-regional economic co-operation. The meeting, besides accepting 2002-end as the time
frame for the SAFTA framework treaty, also agreed that the process for South Asian
Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA) be accelerated by holding the fourth round of
negotiations. Nepal will be hosting the fourth round soon.
The meeting also deliberated upon trade
facilitation measures such as avoiding double taxation, and adopting financial sector
reforms. The ministers also discussed appointing consultants on the transition of SAPTA to
SAFTA, and on a common approach to the WTO.
Three member states presented their reports at
the meeting. While Nepal made a presentation on poverty alleviation, Bhutan did so on
environment, and Bangladesh on energy.
Other Stories
|
