Thursday, November 10 2005 18:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhaka: India will strongly pitch for an 'indivisible fight' against poverty and terrorism in South Asia and push hard for evolving SAARC as a regional trade bloc and an economic union at the two-day Summit of the regional grouping here from November 12.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrives here tomorrow (Nov 11, 2005) evening, is expected to highlight the need for strengthening regional cooperation in fighting the scourge of terrorism.

Ratification of the Additional Protocol to the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism and early conclusion of a Comprehensive on International Terrorism are likely to be emphasized by Singh during his address at the Summit.

Outlining India's expectations from the SAARC Summit, Singh said yesterday (Nov 9, 2005) in Chandigarh that the destiny of South Asia was inter-linked be it poverty, disease, natural disasters or the issue of terrorism.

"Thus we must learn to work together to deal with these challenges," he said.

In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Singh said no country can pretend that cross border terrorism will not affect it internally and that our terrorist could be someone's 'freedom fighter.'

Indian officials said Singh will press for a new vision and a fresh commitment from his SAARC counterparts to collectively deal with challenges like terrorism, poverty and natural disasters.

He would also seek to dispel apprehensions of some the countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, which view many initiatives by India with suspicion and being only of the interest of the 'big brother'.

Singh favors a perspective of inter-dependency that strengthens the 'collective security' of South Asian nations and secures their 'collective prosperity'.

Efforts are underway to hammer out differences to ensure that the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement is operationalised by January 2006 as decided earlier.

Bangladesh fears that SAFTA would result in Indian goods flooding its markets and drastically hit its fledgling industry. Differences also persist on issues relating to rules of origin, sensitive list of products and the revenue compensation mechanism.

The Prime Minister wants the SAARC nations to see India as a 'land of opportunity', be it in education, health care, tourism, trade and investment opportunities.

The underlying message would be cooperation with India would only help in their own growth and prosperity and would not in any way be detrimental to their national interests and objectives, the officials said.

Singh has made it clear that given the strong trends towards economic integration that go far beyond tariff reductions to gradual economic convergence, any region can ignore the formation of its own scheme of regional integration only at its own peril.

India feels that by removing trade policy barriers, SAFTA would lead to an estimated trebling of intra-regional trade on a conservative estimate.

Three new trade facilitation agreements are expected to be signed at the Summit. These are on establishment of SAARC Arbitration Council, Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters and a Limited Multilateral treaty on Avoidance of Double Taxation.