SAFTA framework likely before Islamabad meet

By Rajkumar KC

KATHMANDU, Oct. 18: High-level officials from all the seven SAARC member countries are meeting in the capital from next week to discuss the basic framework of the SAFTA and to prepare recommendations on the main issues relating to trade and economy in preparation for the 12th SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad in January 2003.

The 11th meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation, which begins from October 26, will be held in three phases, according to officials at the SAARC Secretariat here. The meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation will be held on October 26 and 27. Commerce Secretaries of all the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be taking part in the meeting and will discuss the overall progress being made after the Kathmandu summit held earlier this year.

Besides, the Committee is also expected to prepare economic guidelines for the Islamabad summit.
The second-round of the meeting, to be held at the joint secretary level on October 28 and 29, is expected to discuss the basic framework of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA).

"Most probably, the SAFTA framework will be prepared before the 12th summit," said a high ranking official at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS).

The 11th SAARC summit had proposed that the SAFTA framework should be prepared before the 12th summit. However, no progress has been made so far, according to the SAARC Chamber of Commerce (SCC). None of the member countries is learnt to have prepared their individual framework yet, said a former member of the SAARC eminent group.

The process, according to him, was derailed by conflicts between India and Pakistan. The meeting will discuss the progress made in the preparation of the SAFTA framework. Each member country will present its views about the basic framework, said R.K Chander, director of the Trade and Economic Division at the SAARC Secretariat.

Another meeting, slated for October 30 and November 1, will review the progress made on the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA), said Chander. According to Padma Jyoti, President of the SCC, each SAARC member will endeavor to add more goods for preferential treatment.

As of now, more than 5,500 items have been listed for preferential treatment, but 75 per cent of the items bear no economic importance in trade. It is said that hardly 200 items are traded under the preferential treatment.

Traders and industrialists often say the least developed countries (LDCs) like Nepal and Bhutan are not benefiting from the SAPTA. "The upcoming meeting will discuss various aspects of the SAPTA. But the LDCs in the region should also raise their voice for their benefit as well," said Jyoti.

Economists here say that the upcoming meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation will be very crucial from the point of view of giving dynamism to the trade and economic issues during the upcoming summit, although much will depend on how the LDCs can negotiate in their interest.
Officials at the MoICS hope the upcoming meeting will help iron out many issues that are remain unsettled in bilateral trade, particularly with India.

According to Ministry sources, Secretary at the MoICS Bhanu Prasad Acharya will be chairing the 11th meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation. And Joint Secretary Purshottam Ojha will be chairing the second round of the meeting. Asked whether Nepal had prepared the framework for the SAFTA, Joint Secretary Ojha said, " We have prepared its structure for discussion." South Asia accounts for 21.9 per cent of the world's population, but it contributes just two per cent to the world's GDP. Similarly in the export and import trade, the region contributes only one per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively. The success of the SAFTA largely depends upon the attitude of big nations (like India and Pakistan) and efforts of the developing and LDCs like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

SAPTA has been in operation for the last seven years now. But it has not proved to be an efficient vehicle for preferential trading arrangement. Countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan have not benefited from the preferential trading arrangement. The South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) came into force on December 7, 1995, two years after the ratification of the agenda. The SAPTA was endorsed in 1993 April 11. SAFTA itself is not a means, but medium to achieve a common economic goal through concerted efforts of each member state. Efforts of individual nations alone cannot help materialise the main objectives of the SAARC.

Devkota for reforms of Bir Hospital

By A Staff Reporter

KATHMANDU, Oct. 18: Dr. Upendra Devkota went to Bir Hospital today not as a neuro-surgeon, but as a policy-maker with pledges to bring about structural reforms in the country's oldest hospital.
The Bir Hospital today felicitated Dr. Devkota on his recent appointment as Health Minister in the Chand cabinet. Dr. Devkota is also the Minister for Science and Technology.

Speaking at the programme, Dr. Devkota said he would start his ministerial tenure by initiating reforms at the hospital. "Charity begins at home," he said. He mentioned that he would still be visiting the hospital twice a week as a doctor.

At the programme, the Health Minister said his first job for the hospital would be to set up a renal (kidney) transplant unit and see that the hospital grows into an institute for post graduate studies.
Minister Dr. Devkota said that the government's priority would be to maintain peace and security in the country and to hold elections at the earliest date possible so that the chairs can be handed over to the elected representatives. "I will come back to the Hospital after handing over the chair to the democratically-elected government," he said.

"The present situation was not a designed one. Instead, it was invited by the democratically elected government," he said. He accused the recently dismissed Nepali Congress government for violating Constitutional norms. "It was they who derailed themselves from the constitutional path. If the democratic system cannot cater to the needs of the people and the country, the Constitution is no better than a scrap of paper," said Devkota.

He blamed over-politicisation for destroying the image of multiparty democracy in Nepal. Democracy should cater to the needs of people, and this could not happen in the last 12 years, he said.
Another priority of the government, he said, was corruption control. "The new government will continue its efforts in this direction," he said.

Bir Hospital, he said, reflects country's overall health sector. Its reform is essential as its condition has become very painful in the last 12 years, he added. "I accepted the post as the nation was undergoing through a difficult period. "Doctors as visionary, and they have played crucial roles when the country is in a difficult situation."

Hinting that doctors should shun active politics, he said serving the needy should be the real politics of the people. "Who is greater? A doctor who performs surgery on 10,000 patients or a politician who uses ordinary people for Rs. 10? " he questioned.

Dr. Devkota called on all the doctors of the hospital to forget the past and start anew. "I will also forget all the negative impressions that I have had about the hospital. "The evaluation will begin now." He said that there was no alternative for Bir Hospital other than to improve itself. "It has everything; what remains now is to identify its potential," he added.

At the programme, Director of Bir Hospital Dr. Manohar Lal Shrestha said that Devkota's appointment as minister was a great opportunity for the hospital to improve.

He also said that the political parties had violated the values and sentiment of the present Constitution. "The nation is facing the present crisis because the political parties deviated from their ideologies in their quest to fulfil their selfish interests," he added.

Fear on fake medicine racket grows

By Bishnu Budhathoki

KATHMANDU, Oct. 18 The discovery of banned, sub-standard and outdated medicines in 11 pharmacies in the Kathmandu Valley last month, the first time in a decade or so, is indicative of the racket that might be going on in the medicine market.

About a month back, The Times of India had reported that a raid in New Delhi found that only four out of the 53 drugs tested proved to be genuine. If fake medicines are so widespread in India, then Nepal must fare no better as majority of the medicines sold here are manufactured in India. Medicines manufactured locally meet only 26 per cent of the demand.

Nepal annually consumes about Rs. 6.8 billion worth of medicine, and the demand is growing by almost 19 per cent. This offers a tempting market for those dealing in spurious medicines. The consumption of spurious and date-expired medicines means either the patients feel no effect or that they end up sicker. Many people are ignorant about the quality of the medicine they buy.

Dr. Manohar Lal Shrestha, Director at Bir Hospital, said that the problem is not very serious in the Kathmandu valley. But even then, he says quite a few spurious medicines like ciprofloxacin, one of the most commonly used antibiotics, are even found in the pharmacies in front of Bir Hospital.
But the Department of Drug Administration (DDA) says that the chance of spurious medicine infiltrating into Kathmandu is very low.

Director at the DDA Bhupendra Bahadur Thapa told The Rising Nepal that that there is very little possibility. "The sale of spurious medicine is rare because of the strict regulations." The DDA has confiscated only five or six fake medicines during its supervision in a decade.

But that was before the DDA and the local administration found a good supply of fake, banned and date-expired medicines from those 11 pharmacies. This has put into doubt the DDA's thinking that all is well in the medicine market. The situation could be particularly bad in the Terai. Thapa, however, accepted that spurious medicines might be circulating in the Terai due to the open border.

Every medicine sold in the country needs to get approval from the DDA. It is mandatory for both the company and the brand to be registered with the DDA.