2nd SAFTA Ministerial Council meeting at SAARC Summit

27 Feb '07

3 min read

In this context, it would be important for members to enhance connectivity, physical, economic and people-to-people, in the region, Shri Kamal Nath said, while stating that “we expect the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi to take forward this idea, identify and implement concrete projects for upgrading our trade and transport infrastructure, enlarge the scope of SAFTA to include trade in services and investment and comprehensively address issues of trade facilitation, which is at the heart of increasing trade engagement successfully”, he said.

Referring to the fact that SAFTA has important 'F's – Freer, Fairer and Faster Trade, Shri Kamal Nath reiterated India's commitment to provide to all its neighbours greater market access and technical facilitation for greater economic cooperation in the SAARC region.

Background on SAFTA:
• SAFTA has come into force from 1 January 2006. Both India and Pakistan are signatories of SAFTA
• Phased Tariff Liberalisation Programme (TLP) of SAFTA has been implemented by Member States from 1st July, 2006.
• This TLP to cover all tariff lines except those kept in the Sensitive (Negative List) by each country.
• All the countries have notified tariff concessions for the first phase.
• Pakistan's notification for tariff concessions is with an India-specific rider that imports from India into Pakistan would continue to be as per the Positive List (now 1075 items).

Press Information Bureau, India

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