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| Tuesday, 9 March 2004 |
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Road Map for SAFTA negotiations The first round of trade negotiations of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) concluded last week in Kathmandu, Nepal, which was attended by the "Group of Experts" (GOE) consisting of members from the member Countries. The GOE agreed on a "Road Map" for the negotiations to finalise the annexures for the Agreement including the Rules of Origin criteria within the stipulated time frame. The Group of Experts agreed to deliberate on finalising the sensitive list of products, technical assistance to lease developed countries, common rules of origin and the proposed mechanism for compensation for the LDCs due to the implementation of the Tariff Reduction commitment under the Agreement. SAFTA is expected to provide Sri Lanka a longer tariff liberalisation program period and special treatment to Sri Lanka under the Rules of Origin, which is likely to help the country towards gaining more tariff concessions when exporting to member countries of SAFTA. The Framework Agreement of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement was signed by the member countries during January 2004. The Sri Lankan delegation comprised officials from the Ministry of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At present within the SAARC region there is only around 5 % of trade taking place while the rest is being grabbed by the outer world and once fully operation SAFTA is expected to improve the situation to a better level. |
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