Bangladesh, India, other SAARC states to prune negative lists :: Business :: bdnews24.com ::
NEW DELHI, Nov 2 (bdnews24.com)--Bangladesh, India and five of the six other SAARC member-countries will prune their negative lists by 20 percent to boost regional trade under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).
The move is aimed at increasing the number of goods that could be traded duty free under the SAFTA.
Indian commerce minister Anand Sharma told journalists in New Delhi that Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maldives had agreed upon a Tariff Liberalization Programme (TLP) during the fourth meeting of the SAFTA Ministerial Council in Kathmandu last week.
Sharma, Bangladesh commerce minister Faruk Khan and their counterparts from five other SAARC countries attended the meet. Pakistan was represented by a senior official from Islamabad.
The meeting decided that only the goods with substantial trade coverage would be taken out of the Sensitive Lists to ensure that the initiative results in trade creation.
Apart from pruning the negative lists by 20 percent, the proposed TLP also includes bringing down the tariff on 30 percent of the tariff lines outside the Sensitive Lists to zero over the next two years.
The TLP is to be confirmed by the member-states by December.
The SAFTA Ministerial Council exempted Bhutan, which has just last year transformed from an absolute monarchy to constitutional democratic monarchy, from accepting any time-bound programme to lessen the number of items on its negative lists.
But it might appropriately accommodate some of the requests from other SAARC countries.
The SAFTA came into existence on Jan 1, 2006, but the South Asian nations are still far away from harnessing the full potential of the free trade agreement, particularly due to the huge negative lists they maintained.
For example, the negative list of India has 27 major exportable products of Bangladesh, including readymade garments, textile materials, footwear, meat, sports item, ceramic and tiles.
Sharma said that India had unilaterally withdrawn 264 items from its sensitive list for Bangladesh and other Least Developed Countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
He said that intra-regional trade share in South Asia in 2008 was of the order of 4.31 per cent as against 27.06 per cent for Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
"One needs to see the rapid integration within ASEAN and its emergence as an important economic bloc inAsia to understand the opportunities that beckoned SAARC and the unutilised potential in the region," said Sharma.
The SAFTA Ministerial Council decided that the non LDC or NLDC countries would reduce the tariff lines taken out from the sensitive list by 0-5 per cent for the NLDCs over the next three years, LDCs would do the same to all contracting states in eight years and NLDCs for the LDCs in three years.
War-ravaged Sri Lanka has been given six years to reduce the tariff lines.
A highly-placed official at the Indian's Ministry of Commerce said that an expert group had cleared the text of the Draft SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services and a deal could be signed during the 16th summit of the eight-nation bloc in Bhutan in April next year.
This SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services would provide real and effective market access to all Contracting States in an equitable manner.
Negotiations for schedule of specific commitments would take place in subsequent meetings keeping in view the national policy objectives, the level of development and the size of economies of Contracting States both overall and in individual sectors, said the official.
NEW DELHI, Nov 2 (bdnews24.com)--Bangladesh, India and five of the six other SAARC member-countries will prune their negative lists by 20 percent to boost regional trade under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).
The move is aimed at increasing the number of goods that could be traded duty free under the SAFTA.
Indian commerce minister Anand Sharma told journalists in New Delhi that Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maldives had agreed upon a Tariff Liberalization Programme (TLP) during the fourth meeting of the SAFTA Ministerial Council in Kathmandu last week.
Sharma, Bangladesh commerce minister Faruk Khan and their counterparts from five other SAARC countries attended the meet. Pakistan was represented by a senior official from Islamabad.
The meeting decided that only the goods with substantial trade coverage would be taken out of the Sensitive Lists to ensure that the initiative results in trade creation.
Apart from pruning the negative lists by 20 percent, the proposed TLP also includes bringing down the tariff on 30 percent of the tariff lines outside the Sensitive Lists to zero over the next two years.
The TLP is to be confirmed by the member-states by December.
The SAFTA Ministerial Council exempted Bhutan, which has just last year transformed from an absolute monarchy to constitutional democratic monarchy, from accepting any time-bound programme to lessen the number of items on its negative lists.
But it might appropriately accommodate some of the requests from other SAARC countries.
The SAFTA came into existence on Jan 1, 2006, but the South Asian nations are still far away from harnessing the full potential of the free trade agreement, particularly due to the huge negative lists they maintained.
For example, the negative list of India has 27 major exportable products of Bangladesh, including readymade garments, textile materials, footwear, meat, sports item, ceramic and tiles.
Sharma said that India had unilaterally withdrawn 264 items from its sensitive list for Bangladesh and other Least Developed Countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
He said that intra-regional trade share in South Asia in 2008 was of the order of 4.31 per cent as against 27.06 per cent for Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
"One needs to see the rapid integration within ASEAN and its emergence as an important economic bloc inAsia to understand the opportunities that beckoned SAARC and the unutilised potential in the region," said Sharma.
The SAFTA Ministerial Council decided that the non LDC or NLDC countries would reduce the tariff lines taken out from the sensitive list by 0-5 per cent for the NLDCs over the next three years, LDCs would do the same to all contracting states in eight years and NLDCs for the LDCs in three years.
War-ravaged Sri Lanka has been given six years to reduce the tariff lines.
A highly-placed official at the Indian's Ministry of Commerce said that an expert group had cleared the text of the Draft SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services and a deal could be signed during the 16th summit of the eight-nation bloc in Bhutan in April next year.
This SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services would provide real and effective market access to all Contracting States in an equitable manner.
Negotiations for schedule of specific commitments would take place in subsequent meetings keeping in view the national policy objectives, the level of development and the size of economies of Contracting States both overall and in individual sectors, said the official.
