A senior Nepali official has said that the USA and Republic of Korea have expressed interest to join the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as observers.

Dev Raj Dahal, Head of FES Nepal, Foreigan Minister KP Oli, Deputy Speaker Chitra Lekha Yadhav, and officiating Foreign Secretary Bhagirath Basnest (from left to right) in an interaction program on Expansion of SAARC: Challenges and opportunities in Kathmandu, Thursday, June 29 06. nepalnews.com/rh

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the two day regional seminar on “The expansion of SAARC: Challenges and Opportunities,” organized in Lalitpur on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister K. P. Sharma Oli said with the granting of observer status to China and Japan by the 13th summit, SAARC has attracted the attention of the rest of the world. He said the USA and the Republic of Korea have also expressed desire for observer state status with SAARC, which is yet another manifestation of the SAARC potentials. He said the collaboration and cooperation to SAARC from the big economies of Japan and China could be instrumental in energizing and electrifying the process of economic development in the region.

Deputy Prime Minister Oli further said the agreement on the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) that came into force since 1st January 2006 can be considered as a major milestone in the economic journey of SAARC. He said the vision of regional economic integration is expected to take concrete shape after the creation of the South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) by 2020. Emphasis on poverty alleviation is on focus with the adoption of the SAARC Development Goals and the SAARC Plan of Action on Poverty Alleviation. People of South Asia feel much closer today than ever before because of the exchange of visits and interactions among themselves, said Oli.

Addressing the function, deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Mrs. Chitra Lekha Yadav said with two decades into existence, SAARC had become fully mature and it was time to evaluate what it has achieved so far and where it failed miserably. She said future development will be right-based, demand-driven and highly politicized. She said only an inclusive cooperation could build SAARC’s bright future. Mrs. Yadav said SAARC should strengthen partnership culture at various levels in defining its vision. She added that political space within SAARC needed to be expanded in order to promote cooperation in the areas of socio-economic development.

Head of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Nepal, Dev Raj Dahal, said Afghanistan’s entry into SAARC had ensured the integrity of South Asian strategic geography and set a connection with the Middle East and Central Asia. He said SAARC needs to make major investment in human resource development and formulate a regional strategy to train skilled workforce to match with knowledge-based economy. The current economic dynamism of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), due to capital and natural resource surplus and expanding labor market opportunities, provides the South Asian governments an incentive to widen the base of remittance economy, trade, foreign direct investment and market opportunities, he added.

Mr. Dahal further said expansion of regional cooperation has disadvantages if internal coherence, effectiveness and symmetry of information are not properly attuned, opportunities for mutual interests remain vaguely defined and policy coordination suffers due to structural and institutional barriers. Successful progress in the region is vitally linked to the resiliency of the member states, markets and civil society groups, all acting in a common spirit to optimize the prospect for shared effort towards security, peace, progress and identity of South Asia.

The two-day seminar, being organized by the Institute of Foreign Affairs in cooperation with FES, has brought together scholars from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, among others.