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ECO urges members to boost regional trade volume, connectivity

By APP
December 12, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Economic Coordination Organisation (ECO) Secretary General Halil Ibrahim Akca on Monday called upon the ECO member states to increase their joint efforts for increasing the intra-regional trade by twofold.

“ECO Vision 2025 has stipulated to double the intra-regional trade for which we need to at least re-double the efforts,” he said, while addressing the 28th meeting of Economic Cooperation Organisation Regional Planning Council (ECORPC) on Monday.

He said the intra-regional ECO trade accounts for 7.64 percent of the total trade of the ECO member states, which is not comparable with peer economic blocs; therefore ECO needs to intensify efforts on this account.

The ECO’s share in global trade, Halil Ibrahim said has been stagnating around just two percent of the total trade of the ECO member states despite the fact that ECO has 6.2 percent of the world population. The four-day meeting was kicked off to review progress on the implementation of the ECO-approved programmes and projects, and to consider proposals for new programmes and projects for 2018-2019. The inaugural session was co-chaired by Minister for Interior and Planning Ahsan Iqbal and Halil Ibrahim.

The meeting is being attended by representatives of 10 ECO member countries besides high officials from the concerned federal ministries.

This forum will discuss preparations for ECO’s Special Conference on Afghanistan and will adopt the draft outcomes of the ministerial segment on Annual Work Programme 2018, calendar of events 2018 and draft ECO Advocacy Policy for Afghanistan.

Halil Ibrahim said although China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was not part of ECO, the member states of the organisation were very much interested to take benefit of the corridor.

Regarding energy sector, he said, “We are in the process of developing the next ECO plan of action for energy and petroleum cooperation for the period 2018-22, building on the achievements and shortcomings of the existing ECO plan of action (2010-15), taking into account adopted ‘ECO Vision 2025’ and the trending UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).” He said the envisaged new plan of action was expected to be finalised and approved by the 4th ECO ministerial meeting on energy to be held in Turkey.

Minister for Interior and Planning Ahsan Iqbal stressed the need for enhancing regional connectivity among the ECO member states to maximise trade volume.

“Keeping in view the increasing connectivity across the world, the region requires greater collaboration to promote trade, development, peace and stability, however the people of ECO member states are still lacking direct road, rail and air links, and are facing problems in acquiring visas, which is the fundamental requirement to enhance trade.”

The minister said the world was more connected now, therefore, “we need cooperation instead of confrontation”.

The minister said the ECO Summit held in Pakistan earlier this year had chalked out a vision 2025 for the member states, under which it was agreed to increase regional trade twofold by 2025. Currently, he said the total trade volume among the member states was less than nine percent of the overall trade volume of the member states across the globe.

The minister also stressed the need for promoting cooperation in energy sectors, and said the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran (TAPI) gas pipeline project and Central Asia South Asia (CASA) energy project would help meet the growing needs of electricity across the region.

Ahsan Iqbal said this conference would help explore new ways of development and prosperity and would look forward to greater cooperation to improved regional connectivity. “Asia was emerging as the next continent of economic growth and it was estimated that the region contributes 52 percent of the world’s GDP.”

The ECO was established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, and was later joined by Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.