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India to host South Asia meet ahead of WTO
India on Friday announced that it would host a meeting of South Asian commerce and trade ministers in a bid to formulate a regional position for negotiations at the World Trade Organisation meeting in November.
India on Friday announced that it would host a meeting of South Asian commerce and trade ministers in a bid to formulate a regional position for negotiations at the World Trade Organisation meeting in November.
The foreign secretaries of the seven-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) who ended a two-day meeting in Colombo on Friday agreed to a meeting of their commerce ministers on August 23, diplomats said. Commerce secretaries will meet a day earlier.
These meetings have a very specific agenda -- to formulate a common SAARC position on WTO issues prior to the forthcoming WTO ministerial meeting scheduled for November in Doha, Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer said.
She also called for the speeding up of regional cooperation in trade as well as the activation of a South Asian preferential trade agreement and a free trade agreement.
Sri Lankan diplomats said that SAARC hoped to work towards a framework agreement to incorporate a collective position that the seven-member states will take at the Doha meeting of the WTO.
"The ministerial meeting will agree on how we are going to be represented at the WTO meeting and what we are going to say," a diplomat associated with the talks said.
Commerce ministers of SAARC, which groups India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka agreed in April 1998 at a meeting in Islamabad to coordinate their positions on controversial issues at the WTO.
Bureau Report
The foreign secretaries of the seven-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) who ended a two-day meeting in Colombo on Friday agreed to a meeting of their commerce ministers on August 23, diplomats said. Commerce secretaries will meet a day earlier.
These meetings have a very specific agenda -- to formulate a common SAARC position on WTO issues prior to the forthcoming WTO ministerial meeting scheduled for November in Doha, Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer said.
She also called for the speeding up of regional cooperation in trade as well as the activation of a South Asian preferential trade agreement and a free trade agreement.
Sri Lankan diplomats said that SAARC hoped to work towards a framework agreement to incorporate a collective position that the seven-member states will take at the Doha meeting of the WTO.
"The ministerial meeting will agree on how we are going to be represented at the WTO meeting and what we are going to say," a diplomat associated with the talks said.
Commerce ministers of SAARC, which groups India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka agreed in April 1998 at a meeting in Islamabad to coordinate their positions on controversial issues at the WTO.
Bureau Report