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SAARC Chamber chief urges greater intra-regional
trade
Lahore—SAARC Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCI)
president Tariq Sayeed has urged tangible business proposals to
ensure maximum benefit from economic cooperation in South Asia He
was addressing the inaugural session of seminar on ‘Quantification
of Benefits from Regional Cooperation in South Asia’ organized by
Foreign Trade Institute of Pakistan in collaboration with Asian
Development Bank (ADB-UNCTAD) at a local hotel on Tuesday.
The seminar was inaugurated by Shahid Bashir, senior joint secretary
Ministry of Commerce. Dr Safdar Sohail, DG Foreign Trade Institute
of Pakistan (FTIP) and Peter Fedon, country head ADB also addressed
the inaugural session.
The second session chaired by Dr Ishrat Hussain, chairman National
Commission for Government Reforms, was addressed among others by
Kavita Iyengar, regional cooperation specialist ADB, Rashmi Banga,
economist UNCTAD, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director SDPI,
and Pratima Dayal, principal country economist ADB, India.
The SCCI chief observed that if the proposals and policy
recommendation provided in the ADB study were implemented by member
states, this could promote economic development in the region. He
suggested that the ADB and UNCTAD conduct sectoral studies in view
of the competency of each member country, which would be more
productive and practical, enabling local businessmen to enter their
particular market.
He noted with dismay the sluggish pace of development in South Asian
region since the inception of SAARC in 1985, with minute iprovement
in intra-regional trade from 3.16 to less than 5 percent in 2007,
while in the same span of time intra-regional trade in EU has grown
from 32 to 55 percent, from 25 to 62 percent in NAFTA, from 12 to 25
percent in ASEAN and from 10 to 22 percent in the region of COMESA,
which clearly indicated lack of commitment by the contracting
parties of SAFTA. —APP
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