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13th SAARC Summit, Dhaka, November 12-13, 2005 

New Delhi, November 08, 2005

The Thirteenth SAARC Summit is being held in Dhaka on November 12-13, 2005. This would be preceded by the Meetings of the Programming Committee (November 8-9), Standing Committee of Foreign Secretaries (November 9-10) and Council of Ministers (November 11). 

Three new trade facilitation agreements are expected to be signed at the Summit: Establishment of a SAARC Arbitration Council, Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters and a Limited Multilateral Treaty on Avoidance of Double Taxation. The next meeting of Committee of Experts (COE) on SAFTA has been scheduled for November 28-29, 2005. The outstanding issues of SAFTA are expected to be resolved at this meeting, so that it enters into force on January 1, 2006. It is hoped that SAFTA would now consider expansion of its scope to include trade in services.

Since poverty alleviation has been identified as the overarching goal of SAARC, the Summit is expected to declare the decade from 2006 to 2015 as the SAARC Decade of Poverty Alleviation. In this regard, the Summit would be endorsing the SAARC Development Goals (SDGs), as recommended by the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA), for implementation of the SAARC Social Charter by the member states. 

India has been keenly advocating identification and implementation of regional collaborative projects for South Asia. The Summit would be recommending reconstitution of the South Asian Development Fund (SADF) by merging existing and proposed funds into a SAARC Development Fund (SDF) with three windows of: (1) Social (2) Economic and (3) Infrastructure, to fund regional projects. This new fund shall utilize India’s pledge money of US$100 million as a part of its initial corpus of US$300 million. 

Taking cognizance of the social challenges of the region, the Summit is expected to direct a mid-term review of the progress in realizing the objectives of the SAARC Decade on the Rights of the Child (2001-2010), to be undertaken in 2006. 

In view of the colossal and tragic loss of life and property because of the recent natural calamites of the earthquake and the tsunami, the Summit would be underscoring the need for putting in place a Regional Response Mechanism regarding Disaster Preparedness, Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation. The forthcoming meeting of the SAARC Environment Ministers is expected to provide important directives in this regard. Recognising the need for collaborative action in the area of environment, the year 2007 has been declared as the ‘Year of Green South Asia’. The year 2006 would be launched as ‘South Asia Tourism Year’. 

Recognising the need to strengthen cooperation in fighting the scourge of terrorism, the Summit would be stressing the need for ratification of the Additional Protocol to the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, and call for an early conclusion of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. 

The Summit would be deliberating upon the decision to admit Afghanistan as a new member of SAARC. India would be happy to support Afghanistan’s bid. The decision on this issue would have to be taken by a consensus of all member states. 

On the completion of two decades of SAARC, a decision is expected to be taken about formulating a new vision document. India feels that the vision document prepared by the Group of Eminent Persons is still relevant. 

India would be tabling a number of new proposals with a view to usher in the third decade of SAARC with renewed vigour and enthusiasm and to augment cooperation in the sectors of education, textiles & handicrafts, civil aviation, healthcare and sports. 

India is to host the Fourteenth SAARC Summit in January 2007. An announcement about this will be made at the Thirteenth Summit. 

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