India pushes for liberalised visa regime for SAARC nations

NEW DELHI: Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma on Thursday announced support to a liberalised regional visa regime for SAARC countries and doubling of the number of business visa exemption stickers to 500. He also called for activation and conclusion of the SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services (SATIS).

"We need to have a more liberalised visa regime so that more businessmen can travel through the region and also bring investments," Sharma said at the inaugural address at the SAARC Business Leaders Conclave on Thursday.

He pointed out that regional trade in the South Asian region is one of the lowest in the world at 6%, against 40% in North America and 25% in ASEAN.

SAARC is an eight-nation grouping, which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal. The SAFTA agreement on goods came into force on January 1, 2006, which required developing countries - India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - to bring their Customs duties down to 20% in the first phase of the two-year period ending in 2007 and to zero by 2016 in phases.

The services pact called Saarc Agreement on Trade in Services (Satis) was signed in 2012, but is yet to get functional as countries are still to submit their schedules.

Negotiations for the Agreement on Promotion and Protection of Investment are still on. "There is huge infrastructural constraint in the region, and we need to address that though greater land and air connectivity and creating port linkages. We need to have freight corridors which will be able to bring down transit cost," Sharma said.