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press trust of india
NEW DELHI, 13 JUNE: India today committed $100 million soft loan for each of its neighbouring countries to help them in developing infrastructure projects such as roads, drinking water and power.
Addressing a meeting of the South Asia Free Trade Area Ministerial Council at Male (Maldives), Union commerce and industry minister Mr Anand Sharma said that India had evolved a new 'Buyer Credit Cover' for the Saarc region.
Essentially, this would be a development loan. We would be happy to extend such development loan through our Exim bank... interest rates close to Libor (London Inter Bank Offer Rate), he said.
Mr Sharma said that the countries in South Asia needed to rapidly break down barriers in key sectors like textiles, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, electronic goods, automobiles and agriculture.
He said that foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade within the Saarc region had been much below the potential.
Mr Sharma, whose speech was made available here, urged the Saarc negotiators to complete talks for opening up trade in services through a separate agreement.
The agreement on South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) came into operation from July 2006.
Safta provides for phased trade liberalisation programme under which India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have to bring down their mutual import tariff to zero-five per cent by December 2012. For others, there was a different schedule of tariff reduction.
But the objective has not been achieved and the intra-regional trade remains less than five per cent against 27 per cent for Asean and 50 per cent for European community~ similar economic blocs and common markets.
Mr Sharma also said that as energy needs of Saarc region was multiplying, there was a need to build greater energy security through transnational electricity grids.
The Saarc region needs to concentrate on all possibilities of cross-border electricity trade. This would help in better energy load management as well as energy security in South Asia, he said.
India commits soft loan for neighbours
NEW DELHI, 13 JUNE: India today committed $100 million soft loan for each of its neighbouring countries to help them in developing infrastructure projects such as roads, drinking water and power.
Addressing a meeting of the South Asia Free Trade Area Ministerial Council at Male (Maldives), Union commerce and industry minister Mr Anand Sharma said that India had evolved a new 'Buyer Credit Cover' for the Saarc region.
Essentially, this would be a development loan. We would be happy to extend such development loan through our Exim bank... interest rates close to Libor (London Inter Bank Offer Rate), he said.
Mr Sharma said that the countries in South Asia needed to rapidly break down barriers in key sectors like textiles, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, electronic goods, automobiles and agriculture.
He said that foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade within the Saarc region had been much below the potential.
Mr Sharma, whose speech was made available here, urged the Saarc negotiators to complete talks for opening up trade in services through a separate agreement.
The agreement on South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) came into operation from July 2006.
Safta provides for phased trade liberalisation programme under which India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have to bring down their mutual import tariff to zero-five per cent by December 2012. For others, there was a different schedule of tariff reduction.
But the objective has not been achieved and the intra-regional trade remains less than five per cent against 27 per cent for Asean and 50 per cent for European community~ similar economic blocs and common markets.
Mr Sharma also said that as energy needs of Saarc region was multiplying, there was a need to build greater energy security through transnational electricity grids.
The Saarc region needs to concentrate on all possibilities of cross-border electricity trade. This would help in better energy load management as well as energy security in South Asia, he said.
India commits soft loan for neighbours
