According to officials, the initiatives taken by India—the biggest country and economy in the SAARC bloc—to help the lesser developed countries will also improve the “intra regional trade amongst SAARC countries.”

The intra-regional trade among SAARC countries is 5 per cent, while in EU it is 63 percent and in ASEAN 38 per cent.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon today said the issue of reducing the telecom tariff in the region was taken up at the standing committee meeting. The meeting will continue tomorrow. He said though the tariff had gone down within the country, the tariff within the region was still high. The issue of terrorism was raised at the standing committee by Sri Lanka in the backdrop of the escalation of violence in the country. The discussions today focused on taking SAARC from a declaratory stage to an implementation level, Menon said.