The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Commerce Secretaries of SAARC countries will meet in December this year and discuss the recommendations made by business leaders of the region to boost trade and bolster economic growth.

The business delegations from the SAARC countries, which met under the aegis of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi last week, submitted their recommendations for consideration of the Commerce Secretaries.

The Commerce Secretary level meeting will focus on removing trade barriers, including non-tariff barriers that are proving as a hurdle for promotion of trade under the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Agreement. The restrictions on movement of goods by roads will also come up in the discussion, commerce Ministry sources said.

The issues relating to immigration and visa restrictions will come up at the meeting of SAARC Home Ministers in the next few weeks while Finance Ministers of the region held deliberations on the SAARC Development Fund in September, a senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs said.

Regional trade is largely dominated by Indian exports to SAARC member states. India's share of trade in SAARC amounts to almost 80 percent of all trade.

Intra-regional trade forms a paltry 5 per cent of the total trade by SAARC nations. By contrast, European Union (EU) members do 60 per cent of their trade with each other.

SAARC'S bigger players look to the United States - which takes nearly a quarter of all exports from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - and EU.