Trade and travel key, says PM, eases visas, SAARC duty regime

NEW DELHI, APRIL 3: Underlining that peace was key to “fulfilment of our vision of prosperity and cooperation in South Asia”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today told the 14th SAARC Summit that India will allow zero-duty access to least developed countries of the region by the year-end and reduce the sensitive list for these nations. The duty exemption will help Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Bhutan.

Singh also announced “unilateral” liberalisation of visas for students, teachers, professors, journalists and patients from SAARC countries.

He said “the dream of full regional connectivity will not be realised merely by building roads and railways, we must commit to actually making travel freer and easier... Let us aim to double the intra-SAARC flow of tourists in the next five years.”

He said India was ready to accept “asymmetrical responsibilities” while opening the markets to her neighbours without insisting on reciprocity.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, speaking to editors during an interaction, spoke of forward movement in the Indo-Pak dialogue process but linked free trade with India to progress on the “core” issue of Kashmir. “Trust deficit is reducing. We need to work together to reduce it further... We want to make it zero,” he said, maintaining that “trade is linked to progress on Kashmir.”

At the session, Aziz said “drain of our energies” because of conflict management was stopping the region from achieving the SAARC goals. “The reason why we have been slow in catching up with other regional organisations is evident. The political environment in South Asia has remained vitiated by disputes and mistrust. We have been mired in conflict management,” he said.

In his speech, Prime Minister Singh said: “There is also today economic vibrancy and social change in every country of South Asia. Never before has it been truly within our capacity to envisage a future where our people are free of the twin curses of poverty and disease.”

He suggested that by “harmonizing systems and methods”, South Asian countries can “ultimately move on to an energy exchange with energy markets” for the entire region .

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