Leaders of India, Pakistan and five other South Asian nations signed a draft agreement vowing to slash trade barriers starting from 2006, to boost growth in a region that is home to half the world's poor.
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries, which also include Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives, also agreed to all but eliminate tariffs by 2016. That would bring to fruition the idea of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement that was envisaged in 1985, when the group was formed.
South Asia, home to a quarter of the world's people, is moving to emulate ASEAN and the EU. Trade between ASEAN nations makes up 63 percent of Southeast Asia's trade and intra-EU trade accounts for two-thirds of the trade of the 15 EU countries.
Trade among South Asian countries, 70 percent dominated by India, is barely 5 percent of the region's total.
"We have finally come to accept that if we do not close ranks our peoples will sink deeper into poverty and our countries will continue to suffer the consequences of discord and weakness in the fiercely competitive world," Bhutan's Prime Minister Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley said.
The signing ceremony, broadcast by Pakistan Television, came at the end of 12th SAARC summit in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Under the planned trade agreement India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the region's largest economies, have until the end of 2012 to reduce tariffs to between zero and 5 percent.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives have until 2016.
Each country will be able to maintain a "sensitive list" of products on which tariffs won't be reduced.
"The accord will open up markets such as Pakistan that are not available today," said Sanjiv Bajaj, vice-president in charge of finance at Bajaj Auto Ltd, India's No. 2 motorcycle maker. "With duties coming down, our products would be cheaper in the other countries like Bangladesh."
Trade among the seven countries, home to more than 1.5 billion people, is an annual US$4 billion and may rise to US$14 billion once restrictions are removed, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry estimates.
India has a free-trade agreement with Sri Lanka and open borders with Bhutan and Nepal, while Pakistan is negotiating free-trade deals with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS