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SAARC CONFERENCE |
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SAARC CONFERENCE |
Public-Private Partnership A meeting underlines the need for governments and the private sector in the region to come closer By A CORRESPONDENT Can the governments and private sector in the region continue to ignore each other? No, said the daylong SAARC Economic Conference that concluded here Sunday. The conference, organized jointly by the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), stressed the need to forge government-private sector alliance in South Asia.
Addressing the meeting in the capital, President of SCCI Qasim Ibrahim said the governments should specialize in planning, structuring, and regulation while the private sector should specialize in management, investment, construction, and financing. The responsibility should be transferred through deregulation and open competition or well-established contractual arrangements including management contracts, capital leases, concessions, sale of assets and rights to operate, he said. SAARC Secretary-General Nihal Rodrigo said closer cooperation between the government and non-government sector was required for developing the potential rewards and protecting the region against the risks of globalization. Inaugurating the conference, Prime Minister G. P. Koirala said trade liberalization should be a means to promote the economic well-being and prosperity of the people in the SAARC region. As South Asia, which houses one-fifth of the world population, continues to live in poverty and underdevelopment, such a task becomes more urgent. Said FNCCI President Pradip K. Shrestha, "South Asian governments and the private sector have to march together to solve the problems of poverty and deprivation and provide a respectable standard of living to the people in the region. A tall order indeed. |
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