Islamabad: Enhancing regional cooperation in areas like energy, infrastructure and information technology would be the focus of Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's visit to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh as part of the first leg of his tour to SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations starting Monday (Nov 1, 2004).

As Pakistan is presently the Chairman of SAARC, the country's Prime Minister has to visit member countries at least once during his tenure as part of the SAARC tradition.

Aziz will begin his visit with going to Nepal on November one and then go to Bhutan on November 2 and later to Bangladesh on November 3.

During the second part of his tour starting from November 22, he would visit India, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Ahead of his visit, Pakistan officials in Islamabad said Aziz would be outlining efforts being made by Pakistan to strengthen SAARC during its tenure.

Pakistan has initiated discussions at the regional level on energy, which included wider distribution of gas and petroleum products through pipelines. For Regional Cooperation, development of energy, connectivity, transport, infrastructure, cooperation in information and communication technology are essential, they said.

Stressing that Islamabad has encouraged closer ties between SAARC and other international and regional organizations including EU, GCC, ASEAN, UN agencies and international financial institutions, they said Pakistan is also making efforts to get an observer status for SAARC at the United Nations.