The meeting of the Committee of Experts (CoE) on South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) framework agreement kicked off in Kathmandu Tuesday with a view of finalising all outstanding issues.

The 11th round of talks of high-ranking commerce officials of the seven-member regional bloc – South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be a crucial one, as the deadline to implement the regional free trade area agreement is nearing, according to reports.

The meeting, will mainly discuss two outstanding issues-SAFTA sensitive list and mechanism of compensation for revenue loss.

“The deadline is nearing and it is very important to hammer out the outstanding issues before the SAARC Summit,” reports quoted a member of Nepali delegation as saying.

The 12th SAARC Summit had entrusted the CoE to finalise the unresolved four outstanding issues — sensitive lists, rules of origin, mechanism of compensation for revenue loss and technical assistance (TA) to Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

The CoE has so far been successful to narrow down differences on Technical Assistance and rules of origin.

The developing members have agreed to provide technical assistance to the LDCs for their capacity building.