Presented by : Krupa pandit

Bcom 4th sem ‘b’

118

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was formed in December 1985. It is an organization of south Asian countries which includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and sir Lanka. Afghanistan joined the organization in 2005. Purpose of the organization is collective economic, technical, social, and cultural development of member states. The Headquarter of SAARC is in Kathmandu, Nepal.

SAARC

to promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve their quality of life;

to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realise their full potential ;

to promote and strengthen selective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia;

to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems;

to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields;

to strengthen co-operation with other developing countries;

to strengthen co-operation among themselves in international forums on matters of common interest; and

to maintain peace in the region

to co-operate with international and regional organisations with similar aims and purposes.

The Agreement on SAARC Preferential trading Arrangement (SAPTA) was signed on 11 April 1993 and entered into force on 7 December 1995, with the desire of the Member States of SAARC (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives to promote and sustain mutual trade and economic cooperation within the SAARC region through the exchange of concessions.

SAPTA

The establishment of an Inter-Governmental Group (IGG) to formulate an agreement to establish a SAPTA by 1997 was approved in the Sixth Summit of SAARC held in Colombo in December 1991.The basic principles underlying SAPTA are as under;

Overall reciprocity and mutuality of advantages so as to benefit equitably all Contracting States, taking into account their respective level of economic and industrial development, the pattern of their external trade, and trade and tariff policies and systems;

Negotiation of tariff reform step by step, improved and extended in successive stages through periodic reviews;

Reorganization of the special needs of the least developed contracting states and agreement on concrete preferential measures in their favour;

Inclusion of all products , manufacturers and commodities in their raw, semi-processed and processed forms.

The South Asian Free Trade Area or SAFTA is an agreement reached on 6 January 2004 at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan.

It created a free trade area of 1.6 billion people in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (as of 2011, the combined population is 1.8 billion people).

The seven foreign ministers of the region signed a framework agreement on SAFTA to reduce customs duties of all traded goods to zero by the year 2016.