Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 1:

Finance minister Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani today suggested Indian government to expand the Indian road network to South Asian capital cities which would, according to him, help expand trade between the States of the region.

"India is now working to connect North-South and East-West through the road networks and it may be worthwhile to expand the network to all the capital cities of the SAARC memeber states," Lohani said at the inagural session of SAARC-UNDP high level forum on poverty alleviation. He said that the poverty reduction is the area of strategic concern for the South Asian countries.

QAMA Rahim, secretary general of SAARC said that that the secretariat is working to assess the possibilty to link the SAARC nations by road ways.

"The 12th SAARC Summit has mandated the secretariat to commission a study on transport sector linkage and we are working on it," he said. Rahim said that the two-day forum would be helpful to internalise the recommendations of Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) in the national planning process. "Poverty alleviation is collaborative exercise," Hafiz Pasha, UN assistant secretary general said adding that the UN and the international community need to work together collectively to alleviate poverty.

Madhu Raman Acharya, foreign secretary said that the developed countries should support the the developing countries in their effort to reduce poverty.

The two-day meet is being participated by senior representatives from government from SAARC member states, the SAARC secretariat, the ISACPA, all the resident representatives of UNDP in SAARC countries and senior official from UNDP and the UNICEF.