Sunday, November 13 2005 17:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhaka: The 13th SAARC Summit concluded today (Nov 13, 2005) with the signing of three major agreements - avoidance of double taxation, liberalisation of visa regime and SAARC Arbitration Council.

Announcing the far reaching decisions at the concluding session of SAARC, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed to member countries to resolve few outstanding issues to facilitate implementation of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) by January one, 2006.

"I would like to underline we must expedite the process of resolving few outstanding issues that separate us from the final agreement on SAFTA" to implement it from January one next year, Singh said speaking as the Chairman of the next summit which has been decided to be held in India.

Expressing a sense of satisfaction for making substantive progress in furthering regional cooperation during the two-day deliberations of the 13th Summit, Singh said, "it will be fair to say that this summit will be remembered for several substantive outcomes that have emerged in Dhaka".

He said that the SAARC leaders were also delighted to welcome Afghanistan to the grouping.

Singh said the summit also noted the interest shown by countries like China and Japan to become observers. The SAARC council of ministers would finalise the modalities and guidelines for such status at the earliest. In terms of the agenda of this summit, Singh said, "we also recorded satisfactory progress".

The SAARC leaders signed three agreements on avoidance of double taxation among SAARC countries, setting up SAARC Arbitration Council besides agreeing to liberalised visa regime to facilitate freer trade and travel among the people including mediapersons of the region.

At the same time, he said he would like to underline that "we must expedite the process of reason a few outstanding issues that separate us from the final agreement on SAFTA."

"We must concentrate our efforts to ensure that the collective agreement enters into force from January 1, 2006", he said.