Saarc ministers to meet in Dhaka in Aug for common WTO stance
Nazmul Ahsan
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has called a special meeting of commerce ministers and secretaries of the member states in Dhaka between August 9 and 10.Bangladesh and Pakistan have so far responded positively, sources said. The purpose of the meeting is to take a common position on trade issues ahead of the next World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting, slated for September in Mexico. The initiative of the SAARC Secretariat came at the heels of a request by Dhaka for such a meeting, sources said. The commerce secretaries of the member states will start the discussion on the first day and the ministers will conclude it on August 10 with the possible adoption of a Dhaka Declaration. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives are the members of the SAARC. "During the forthcoming meeting, Dhaka would try to drum up support from the SAARC countries in favour of the 16-point Dhaka Declaration adopted in June last during the LDC trade ministers' meeting," a high commerce ministry official told The Daily Star yesterday. The Dhaka Declaration includes duty- and quota-free market access for all LDC products, temporary movement of natural persons, flexible and simplified rules of origin and special and differential treatment provisions to reverse the continued marginalisation of the LDCs in global trade. "The meeting of SAARC commerce ministers/secretaries on WTO issues will provide us with a platform to firm up a unified position of the SAARC group on trade and commerce in the context of the achievements and failures of the negotiations since the 4th WTO Ministerial in Doha," Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury wrote the SAARC commerce ministers.
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