New Delhi, November 11
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today inaugurated the third South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Information Ministers’ Conference here. In his inaugural speech he invited the member countries to participate in India’s economy rather than be apprehensive about it.
The Prime Minister delayed his departure abroad for inaugurating the conference here.
He allayed fears of certain SAARC countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, without naming them, in stepping up economic cooperation with India and said the SAARC countries should participate in India’s economy rather than be apprehensive about it.
Mr Vajpayee said: “It is time we recognise what it (regional cooperation) means for all of us in South
Asia. Other alignments will develop to seize the economic opportunities offered by closer integration. We cannot forever be challenging logic and mocking economics.”
On the issue of free trade agreement, as India had been having with two SAARC member countries like Nepal and Bhutan for decades, Mr Vajpayee said: “We have repeatedly expressed our willingness to enter into preferential trading arrangements and free trade agreements within the SAARC framework. We are equally willing to do so with SAARC countries individually.”
He specifically cited the example of Sri Lanka saying that India had gone a considerable distance down that road with Colombo. Regarding Bangladesh, he conceded that only a “beginning” had been made with regard to free trade agreement.
In another pronouncement aimed at Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, Mr Vajpayee said: “As I said at the Kathmandu Summit (of SAARC), we are also willing to have special and differential treatment for the least developed SAARC countries.”
Mr Vajpayee dismissed an oft-repeated argument that the unequal physical sizes and economic strengths of the countries in the region inhibited equal cooperation. He argued that his belief was that these very factors could be turned to mutual economic advantage by creating inter-linkages, which could enhance confidence and trust.
Mr Vajpayee regretted that SAARC had been struggling to emerge from the concept to the practical reality of close regional cooperation since its inception in 1985. “The concept is to harness our abundant natural resources, our talented human energies and our industrial synergies to accelerate growth and development in our countries. We are yet to achieve this.”
Coming to the SAARC Information Ministers’ meeting, the Prime Minister said the conference’s “rich agenda” included the evolution of a SAARC-recognised regional media forum, annual conferences of editors from SAARC countries, training facilities for mediapersons and a SAARC media development fund.
Mr Vajpayee stressed the need for genuinely strengthening all-round regional cooperation in information and media and offered twelve seats to SAARC countries in training institutions for various media disciplines under Indian government’s technical and economic assistance programme.
