Saarc Panel Meet In Delhi From October 25

The CEC meeting will be held on October 25-26 and the IGG meeting for the next round of Sapta concessions on October 28-29.

The last IGG meeting was held in Islamabad in September.

The CEC meeting, which is a secretary-level meeting, which was to have been held in September was postponed at Pakistans behest. Pakistan has also sought postponement of the Lahore trade fair from January 1997 to October-November next year.

The Indian government has moved a cabinet note on the second round of concessions to be offered in this round.

As part of the second round of concessions, India intends to offer approximately 25 per cent of the items or 1,200 tariff lines every year to move towards South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta).

The products on which concessions are proposed are primarily those where no import restrictions apply like consumer goods. Pakistan has not yet indicated any intention to offer the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India, a crucial issue for furthering the Sapta process.

Tariff cuts offered under Sapta have begun to show results as exports to these countries have risen by 50 per cent and imports from them by 58 per cent in 1995-96. Trade with these countries has gone up from 4.62 per cent in 1994-95 to 5.36 per cent in 1995-96.

Imports from these countries into India went up from Rs 538.20 crore in 1994-95 to Rs 853.43 crore in 1995-96, a rise of 58.57 per cent. Exports from India to these countries went up from Rs 3,815.06 crore to Rs 5,708.84 crore in 1995-96 up by 49.64 per cent.