The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Dr Sheel Kant Sharma today laid emphasis on keeping the 'SAARC Food Bank' operational with a view to addressing the prevailing food crisis in a coordinated manner in the region.

"I need strong supports from the SAARC member states to materialize the idea of the SAARC Food Bank in the forthcoming SAARC summit to ensure redundant benefit for the SAARC nations", he said while addressing a roundtable here.

Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) organized the roundtable on 'SAARC: Short Window of Opportunity' in its conference room here.

Foreign diplomats, former Bangladeshi diplomats, Directors General of the Foreign Ministry, Former Secretary general of SAARC Q A M A Rahim, intellectuals and academics took part in the discussion. BEI president Farooq Sobhan moderated it.

Dr Sheel Kant Sharma said in recent years a number of promising and substantial achievements were made in the region, but more expectations need to be fulfilled.

Apart from the regional trade, he said, the bilateral trade within the SAARC member states stood at 100 million US dollar in 2007 bringing extra benefits for the 1.5 billion people living in this region.

"We have given a clear instruction to the SAARC ministerial meetings with priority on various issues including energy, climate change, water, food security, trade facilitation and non- tariff barriers in the region," he said.

Dr Sharma, also a former Indian diplomat, said "We believe that the strong leadership of the SAARC member states will have numerous action-oriented agendas in the upcoming summit."

"A multi-modal transport corridor among India, Nepal and Bangladesh will be a prime agenda in the coming SAARC summit," he added.

The SAARC Secretary General also said that with the keenness of Indian Prime Minister, a SAARC University is being established, so students in the SAARC region can have their higher degrees from that institution.

Q A M A Rahim said the SAARC member states should be more realistic in terms of strengthening the regional cooperation by exploring trade related issues.

"Fund is no problem, rather structural problem in the implementation process of any decision of the SAARC is a major bottleneck," he said.

Terrorism still persists in the South Asian region due to lack of legislation, the former SAARC Secretary General said.

Farooq Sobhan called for discussing important issues like high food prices, duty-free access of SAARC products to each other's market in the region, energy security, labour migration and human trafficking in the next SAARC summit "I hope a finer SAARC development fund will be created with the strong leadership of SAARC secretariat" he said.

The people of the SAARC nations can get vast benefit of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) by stimulating regional cooperation and people-to- people understanding, said BEI president.