HEADLINE NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Working Group Meet
South Asia transport body set up

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Nov. 2: Nepal recently hosted the inception meeting of the Transport Working Group under the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Co-operation Programme (SASEC).

Besides the host, the countries participating in the programme included Bangladesh, Bhutan and India, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MPPW).

The SASEC programme supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) currently covers five sectors prioritised by the participating countries. These include transport, energy and poser, tourism, environment, and trade, investment and private sector co-operation. Bangladesh chairs the working group for energy and poser, Bhutan environment, India trade, investment and private sector co-operation, and Nepal chairs tourism and transport.

The Ministry said in the first phase of the programme, different working groups are identifying and prioritising sub-regional projects for financial assistance from ADB and other multilateral and bilateral development partners. These sub-regional projects will include technical assistance grants as well as loans for projects to be included in the next phase. The technical assistance projects will largely relate to improvement in the policy and institutional environment for the development of cross-border infrastructure facilities, cross-border investment and trade. The Ministry said the loans will be mainly used to finance investments in cross-border physical infrastructure projects such as highway, power grids, inland waterway, etc. The first round of such regional technical assistance projects will be launched in 2002. The first round of regional investment projects is expected to be launched by 2003 or 2004.

The Ministry said the basic strategy of the transport working group is to add incremental investments to national infrastructure facilities already in existence or in the pipeline, such as Nepal’s East-West Highway, or the Golden Quadrilateral highways project in India connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkota. "Such incremental investments will connect these national road, rail and inland water systems at minimal cost through cross-border links. This will establish a grid of east-west and north-south high-speed road corridors connected to a network or ports stretching from Chittagong to Mongla to Kolkota and Haldia along the northern rim of the Bay of Bengal," said the press release. "Such a transport system would give a strong boost to trade and investment in the region."

Speaking on the occasion, MPPW Secretary D. C. Pyakurel observed that economic co-operation among the four neighbouring countries had remained a latent dream for many years adding it was now making rapid progress. He thanked the ADB for playing a catalytic role in transforming this dream into reality.

Sudipto Mundle, Head of Operations and Policy co-ordination in ADB’s Programme Department (West), noted that the Manila-based organisation attaches very high priority to this initiative in the context of its principal mission of poverty reduction in Asia. This is because Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal together account for the largest concentration of the world’s poor.

The SASEC Programme is aimed at transforming the poorest, most densely populated area in the world into one of the fastest growing regions through the establishment of a high-speed transport grid, and similar grids for power and energy exchange, fibre optic telecommunications grid, world class port facilities and supporting improvements in the regulatory and institutional frameworks to enhance productivity and efficiency in the region.

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