New Delhi, March 25
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that India’s focus at the upcoming 14th SAARC Summit here would be to broaden connectivity within the South Asian region, adding that New Delhi would seek to have a road transit route to Afghanistan via Pakistan.

In an exclusive interview to ANI on Sunday evening, Mukherjee said, “One of the main things would be connectivity.” “Presently goods can come by road from Afghanistan to India. But from Afghanistan to India it cannot go by road. If we are to send goods to Afghanistan, we have to send via Karachi port. But one of the objectives is to have transit or to facilitate the transit.”

India, he said, would also be looking forward to strengthen road networks with other South Asian neighbours to facilitate better trade ties.

“Other areas which we are talking is of improving the transit roads in the border areas, improving border check-posts, where all the trade facilitating arrangements, including improved custom systems, could be established. Some of the areas have already been identified and India is going to construct modern check-posts on the Indo-Nepal border, the Indo-Bangladesh border, the Indo-Pakistan border, and as I already mentioned, with Sri Lanka we already have a free trade arrangement,” Mukherjee said.

Free trade among the South Asian nations would also be a major point of discussion because trade between the SAARC member nations is as low as five per cent in comparison with the ASEAN, which is 26 per cent and European Union, which is 55 per cent.

“We have operationalised SAFTA from July 1, 2006. Though there are some minor irritations in respect of full operationalisation of South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), because Pakistan has trading system with India on the basis of positive list and it is not free trade,” Mukherjee said.

Apart from this, Mukherjee said that India would lay emphasis on major initiatives that had been taken at earlier summits, like the decision to establish the SAARC Development Fund and SAARC Food Fund to help the member nations to ensure food security in the region.

This is the first time representative from Japan, China, Republic of Korea, the United States and the European Union will attend the SAARC Summit as observers, together.

“Interaction of the observer member nations with SAARC would also facilitate integration of the SAARC economy with the greater Asian economy. Inclusion of Afghanistan as the eighth member of SAARC would facilitate our connectivity to Central Asia. Through Bangladesh, it would be possible, and also through India, it would be possible to have links with Myanmar, which is a member of the ASEAN,” Mukherjee said. — ANI