Trade and economic relations should be SAARC's main goal

The first SAARC summit was held on 7-8 December 1985, in Dhaka. The adoption of a charter formalised SAARC as a regional grouping of seven nations, namely, Bangladesh, India Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The foreign ministers of these nations met in Colombo in 1981 and identified six broad fields of cooperation. These are, agriculture, rural development, telecommunication, meteorology, health and population services. The foreign ministers also set up a "committee of whole" to develop a joint economic policy.

In January 1983, the representatives of the national planning organisations of the SAARC countries met in New Delhi. This was the first ever meeting to deal with the issue of economic cooperation. Planning Commission representatives met again in October 1987. This meeting decided to appoint a consultant to make a serious study, on account of which the study on Trade, Manufactures and Services (TMS) was commissioned. The TMS was completed in 1991 and firmly corroborated what has been felt all along, that economic cooperation was the only way to help achieve all round development.

In May 1991, the council of ministers met in their ninth session in Male, and established the Committee on Economic Cooperation (CEC). Over the years, this body has met many times and has become the engine for mapping strategies in areas like avoidance of double taxation, protection of investment within the SAARC region, standards and measurement, rules of origin, sharing information, setting up of an arbitration council on trade related matters, making special attempts to propagate issues in the interest of least developed nations and above all formulating a joint strategy in multilateral meetings and forums.

In December 1991, the sixth summit, made the very important decision to establish SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) by 1997. The framework agreement on SAPTA was finalised in 1993 and came into full operation in 1995. This agreement supports in a convincing way that the leaders of the SAARC nations understand the importance of economic cooperation.

In the 10th Summit in Colombo in 1998, more important decisions were made. It was decided to reduce tariff on goods that were being traded or were likely to be traded amongst SAARC countries, and to eliminate non-tariff barriers. Structural requirements were put in place to the road to an early setting up of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). In a spirit of SAARC, it was decided to lower the domestic content requirement so that the small least developed countries could benefit equally form economic liberalisation.

The 11th Summit in Kathmandu spoke of the ultimate aim to create a South Asian economic union. This could only be the natural progression of all the efforts to bring synergy through a unified economic strategy, so that they can benefit from interaction with each other and also present a unified stance in different international economic bodies or forums. This should also help in fighting the negative effect of globalisation in the region . SAARC plans to offer a unified stance against any unfair practice in any other international group or bodies of nations that affects member nations.

The Summit in Islamabad is being held in the backdrop of a changed international scenario in which the two larger member nations have played a part. Post 9/11 scenario and the fall of Taliban regime in Afghanistan gave loss of face to one side and strategic victory to another. The border tensions have not decreased significantly. India has accused Pakistan of training the terrorists who attacked the Indian Parliament. However, the anti-terrorism stance of president Musharraf may have helped in making the hosting of this summit possible, with the participation of India. More significant would be the recent victory by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly election that could be interpreted as a mandate given to the leadership of Prime Minister Vajpayee to take positive and bold measures at home and abroad.

Whatever may be the background and facts on the table, we can just be happy that SAARC leaders are meeting once again. As we have seen so far, the member nations have worked hard to increase cooperation in a region that shares a common tradition of cultural, linguistic and ethnic bond. But progress has been slow. However, we hope the leaders of the SAARC countries will conclude a successful summit in Islamabad for the benefit of the region's trade and economy.