India taking steps to reduce 'sensitive lists' for free trade

Thimphu (PTI) India on Tuesday announced that it
was taking steps to reduce the "sensitive lists" of items for
free trade as it pitched for early ratification of a SAARC
pact in Trade in Services and finalisation of an agreement on
Promotion and Protection of Investments to give a fillip to
intra-regional commerce.
Addressing a conference of SAARC Council of Ministers
here, India's External Affairs Minister S M Krishna regretted
that implementation of the agreed decisions was taking time
and needed to be speeded up.
"I am sure my colleagues will agree that we face a
continuing challenge to implement our agreed decisions. We
need to move faster in executing the plans of action," he told
the conference being attended by Foreign Ministers of
Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri
Lanka. Pakistan is being represented by Foreign Secretary
Salman Bashir.
He did not name any country but was apparently referring
to Pakistan which is refusing to implement SAFTA in context of
India and has not even ratified the regional Mutual Legal
Assistance Treaty agreed during the Colombo Summit in 2008.
Krishna said the intra-regional trade in South Asia was
growing and crossed USD 1.2 billion. "This is, however, still
well below its potential," he said.
He said India is taking steps to reduce the "sensitive
lists," especially for the Least Developed Countries, and
hoped this would encourage others to respond too.
Although India has opened up its market for SAARC
countries under SAFTA, it still protects its domestic industry
regarding certain sensitive products. There has been a demand
from SAARC members for reduction of items under the list.
Referring to the signing of the SAARC Agreement on Trade
in Services (SATIS) in Thimphu last year, he said it was a
"big step forward in broadening the scope of trade in SAARC
from goods."
He noted that four SAARC member countries have already
ratified SATIS and urged others which have not yet done so to
take steps to do so soon.
Krishna also pointed out that progress had been made on a
draft agreement on Promotion and Protection of Investments.
Terming it as an "extremely useful" agreement, he said he
looked forward to its early finalisation so that it could be
signed at the next SAARC Summit in Maldives later this year.

Underlining that India was fully committed to the SAARC
processes, Krishna said the need of the hour was to identify
ways and means for the eight-nation grouping to become a more
dynamic component of the larger Asian resurgence,
characterised by increasing inter-linkages and growing
inter-dependence.
While delving upon various aspects of the regional
matters, he identified terrorism as a "very serious challenge"
facing South Asia and noted that SAARC countries were working
to cooperate against the scourge.
He expressed happiness over the fact that India's
proposal to create a South Asia Forum for the exchange of
ideas on future development of South Asia has been endorsed by
all SAARC members.
"We look forward to early nomination of members to the
steering committee of the Forum and to hosting the first
meeting of the Forum in India before the 17th SAARC Summit in
Maldives," he said.