On the following day, inter-governmental expert group on Afghanistan will meet at the same venue to discuss and clear issues related to Afghanistan's joining in the next Saarc summit, due in Delhi in April next.

The Safta CoE and its ministerial council will also discuss and clear intra-regional free trade issues for forthcoming summit of the regional body.

Saarc commerce ministers will take part in the Safta ministerial council meeting which is the highest decision making body of the free trade issues in the region.

Adviser for Finance and Commerce Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam will take part in the ministerial council meeting. He will leave Dhaka today.

Meanwhile, a five-member team of the committee of experts from Bangladesh was attending the meeting from yesterday. Its members include; two senior commerce ministry officials, one representative each from Bangladesh Tariff Commission, National Board of Revenue and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The meeting of inter-governmental expert group on Afghanistan will be represented by the DG of the Saarc Desk in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a senior commerce ministry official. Bangladesh ambassador to Nepal will also take part in some of the meetings.

The first Safta ministerial council meeting and the CoE meeting took place in Dhaka last time. This round of their meeting is the second such meetings. The sources said removal of non-tariff and para-tariff barriers will be on top of the agenda of the CoE meeting.

Because the Saarc poorer nations including Bangladesh are failing to take advantage of the free trade regime as the big players, specially India, is yet to discipline its non-tariff barriers to support LDCs' efforts to increase exports to the Indian market.

This will be the major agenda on the table for the commerce ministers of the Saarc states, which has renewed its commitment to creating the free trade zone in South Asia.

Accordingly, the launching of the Safta took place in July last year and the phasing out of the tariff and non-tariff and para-tariff barriers remained on sharp watch from all quarters.