DOCUMENT No. 1 
 

Statement of Mr. Riaz Khokhar, Pakistan's Foreign Secretary and Chairman of the SAARC Standing Committee

30th Session of the SAARC Standing Committee (July 18-19, 2004)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(Office of the Spokesman)

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen.

I welcome you to this special briefing on SAARC. I particularly welcome media persons who have come from the SAARC region.

Today, we concluded the 30th session of the SAARC Standing Committee. We have made forward movement in reaching decisions and in our deliberations. I am grateful to the delegations of all member states for their cooperation in making this session of the Standing Committee a success.

We had a wide-ranging agenda before us covering diverse aspects of economic, commercial and cultural cooperation. Specifically, we discussed follow-up on SAFT A, strategies for poverty alleviation; stimulating cooperation in the field of energy; and enhanced efforts in the areas of investment; environment; standardisation; customs; transport and statistics. You can see our plate was full.

We reviewed the status of SAARC's interaction with other interested member states, international financial institutions, the United Nations and its specialised bodies, and ASEAN and the future direction of our relationship with the wider international community.

This was the Standing Committee's first meeting after the historic 12th Summit, held here in Islamabad. Thus, our deliberations were guided by the vision and momentous decisions of our leaders.

·         Amongst delegations, there was an overwhelming consensus that poverty alleviation was the overarching concern for SAARC region as a whole. Proposals were discussed to generate new and additional resources to achieve tangible results in reducing poverty.

·         It was also agreed that SAARC would explore possibilities of mobilising financial and other resources from international organisations with whom SAARC has a relationship in order to expand programme activities of the Regional Centres, where applicable. In so doing, SAARC's own priorities will be taken into consideration.

·         SAARC leaders at the 12th Summit enunciated South Asian Energy Cooperation including the concept of an Energy Ring. In pursuance of their decision, the Standing Committee recommended to the Council of Ministers to authorise a meeting of SAARC Energy Ministers to consider the recommendations of the SAARC Working Group. The Committee noted the offer by Pakistan to host a SAARC Energy Ministers' Forum and a SAARC Energy Centre.

·         The Committee invited Member States to give their views on the question of .expansion of the facility of regional cumulation given by the European Commission into an arrangement of Super Regional Cumulation covering both SAARC and ASEAN.

·         The Committee recommended that a Ministerial Meeting on combating terrorism and trans national crimes including drug trafficking and human smuggling be convened at an early date. It welcomed the offer by Bangladesh to host the Meeting.

·         There was a preliminary discussion on establishing dialogue partnerships with other regional bodies and states outside the region. The Secretary General will submit a report on the modalities involved as well as the experiences of other organisations such as ASEAN.

·         The Committee agreed that SAARC Member Countries' Permanent Representatives the UN in New York be directed to take action for obtaining Observer status for SAARC at the UN, during the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly. Pakistan's Permanent Representative, as SAARC Chairman, has been mandated to coordinate efforts in .this regard.

·         The Committee also approved a host of proposals on cooperation in the fields of higher education, health, media, town planning, and women's empowerment.

·         The Committee recommended to include in the SAARC visa exemption category Members of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (lSACPA) and GSS Category-1 officials of the SAARC Secretariat.

        Members of the Committee felt that we should move from words to action, from meetings to projects. There was a lot of emphasis on efficient and effective implementation of SAARC's programmes and projects. The Committee envisaged SAARC as an emerging regional forum in global neighbourhood. No region is an island. We have to be interactive with other regional and international organizations as well as influential actors in finance and development. In doing so, we have to consolidate our own unique strengths, but without creating firewalls around the region that cannot be sustained in a globalized world. 

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session_of_the_saarc_standing_committee.htm>