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February 4, 2001 

Kathmandu, Feb 4,(UNB) – Business leaders from seven SAARC countries will meet here today (Sunday) to chart out measures for propping up sluggish trade among the South Asian nations.

Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala will inaugurate the “5th SAARC Economic Conference 2001” at Hotel Soaltee Crown Plaza in the morning.

Jointly organized by the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the daylong conference is being attended by business delegations from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Abdul Awal Mintoo, the immediate past President of FBCCI and incumbent Vice-President of SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry will preside over one of the three sessions of the South Asian business meet. The session he presides is titled “IT for Economic Development”. The two other sessions are on “Government-Private Sector Partnership” and “WTO : Opportunities and Challenges”.

SAARC Chamber (SCCI) President Qasim Ibrahim, Nepalese government ministers and economic and trade experts from the member countries and European Union will also address the conference on various issues of intra-SAARC and world trade.

Earlier, the fifth-SAARC economic conference have been deferred twice apparently following dilemmas in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) itself because of political factors involving two major players in the bloc -- India and Pakistan.

For the same hurdles, the fourth round of trade negotiations under SAPTA (South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement) have also been postponed several times, the last on January 29. At last, the talks have now been stated for Feb 20 in this capital of the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal.

Sources in the grouping attributed the repeated deferment of the meets on trade and economy to political accrimonies between India and Pakistan emanating from the tit-for-tat nuclear tests by the two traditional rival neighbours in May1998.

Though politics is not in the domain of the regional cooperation forum, the extraneous factor has thrown the long-awaited SAARC conference into abysmal uncertainties. To the nuclear bombs has been added another stumbling block -- military takeover in Pakistan.

India, the largest democracy of the world, with the biggest economy in the region, won’t sit with Pakistan at the meet of political leaders, that is SAARC summit. The summit was scheduled for November 1999, but has been stalled following the developments.

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