Kathmandu, September 3:

The 10th round of talks of Committee of Experts (CoE) on South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) framework agreement concluded here today. “The meeting has been able to narrow down the differences substantially. It has also clearly indicated for a timely implementation of the regional FTA within the scheduled timeframe,” said Ngaindra Prasad Updhaya, joint secretary at MoICS and team leader of Nepali delegation at the CoE meet. The meeting, which officials had claimed as the last one to finalise the SAFTA draft accord, has however been extended to finalise the outstanding issues. The participating delegates agreed to hold the next meeting in Islamabad from October 18-19. The unresolved four outstanding issues — sensitive lists, SAFTA rules of origin, mechanism of compensation of revenue loss and technical assistance to the Least Developed Countries form the main hurdles, which the CoE has been entrusted to thrash out.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Upadhaya said the issue of TA has been completed, as the developing member countries agreed to provide training and consultancy services to the LDC members to compensate for their immediate trade losses. The short term and long term TA will be identified in consultation with assistance providing and receiving countries. Of three developing countries of SAARC region, India and Pakistan have agreed to provide training and consultancy services as TA on various sectors like trade on agriculture, textile and WTO related matters to the LDC members. Another major achievement of this meeting is agreement on general rules of origin. The member countries have agreed on a format of certificate of procedural operations under the general rules of origin. However, the seven member countries are yet to finalise product specific rules of origin.

The meeting also endorsed an earlier agreement to adopt a 40 per cent value-addition norm under the rules of origin for the proposed SAFTA accord and pledged 10 per cent derogation for LDC members. According to Upadhaya, complete sensitive lists prepared by each member states were exchanged during the meeting. Delegates also agreed to exchange the list for bilateral negotiations before entering into a regional consensus. The member countries have been urged to reach a consensus before the Islamabad meeting. Though the meeting couldn’t make any solid progress on compensatory mechanism for revenue loss to LDCs, member countries agreed in identifying those areas and products in which the developing members need to compensate their LDC partners. SAFTA will come into force after the commerce minister level meeting, which is yet to be fixed.