Report of ECO Secretary General to the meeting

 

The tenth Consultative Meeting of Executive Heads of Sub-Regional Organizations of the Asia and the Pacific commenced in Kathmandu from 5-6 September 2005. The two day meeting, hosted by SAARC was participated by Heads of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

 

The Meeting discussed issues ranging from regional trade and investment, economic development, preparation for mitigation of natural calamities, energy infrastructure, development and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

 

The meeting was inaugurated by the Honorable Foreign Minister of Nepal. Addressing the inaugural session, Minister for Foreign Affairs H.E. Mr. Ramesh Nath Pandey stressed on the need to develop a coordinated mechanism, comprising all sub-regional organization in the Asia and the Pacific region to collectively respond to the threat of terrorism. The Executive Heads of UNESCAP, ASEAN, ECO and SAARC made their statements. List of the participants is placed at annex-A.

 

The meeting was co-chaired by the Executive Secretary of UNESCAP and the Secretary General of SAARC. The item wise discussion and decisions of the meeting are as under:

 

 

Agenda Item 1

Millennium Development Goals Challenges and Areas for further regional cooperation

 

All the organizations shared their respective experiences and perspective regarding their achievements of the Millennium Development Goals. They identified three groups of countries within their respective sub-regions:

 

i.            Fast achievers

ii.           Slow achievers, who would achieve some goals but not all;

iii.          Off track countries, who will not be able to achieve most of the goals.

 

Each organization said that special attention is needed to be given the third category. In this regard, they noted that Jakarta Declaration contained a good basis to proceed, but its implementation has to be practically oriented with impact at the grass root level. The organizations agreed to share best practices and experiences in this regard.

 

The meeting noted that UNESCAP’s Thematic Committee on Poverty Reduction, scheduled to be held in Bangkok in November 2005, will consider capacity building measures that could be adopted to implement both the Jakarta Declaration and the Conclusions emanating from the Millennium Declaration + 5 Summit to be held in New York in September 2005. All Sub-regional Organizations will be invited to the Meeting.

 


 

Agenda Item 2

Trade and Investment – Intra-regional and inter-regional trade promotion

 

The meeting discussed the three main areas of trade and investment:

 

i.            Improvement market access

ii.           Building supply side capacity

iii.          Three efficiency and trade knowledge, including trade facilitation.

 

Each organization provided their experiences in the three areas and noted that there was a lack of harmonization of trade facilitation measures among countries and sub-regions although the harmonization of trade documents, standards and procedures is the heart of tgrade facilitation. Further there is no integrated shared data-base of national trade facilitation status/conditions in the Asia Pacific Region. In this regard, UNESCAP has set up the Asia Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNet), an open regional network composed of leading trade research institutions. The network forms a regional integrated data-base aimed at greater harmonization of trade facilitation measures, including that of trade documents, standards and procedures. All sub-regional organizations have been invited to join ARTNet.

 

ECO proposed that Economic Impact Studies on trade liberalization be carried out with the assistance of  UNESCAP to assess the implications of implementing multilateral and regional trade liberalization policies with specific reference to the regional trading arrangements of the various regional organizations. The Studies will assist the Secretariats of regional organizations and their Member States to implement their regional agendas more effectively through highlighting the expected benefits and identifying possible short term negative impacts.

 

ECO has proposed that for the removal of trade barriers and other relevant issues between the member states of the regional organizations, there should be a regular forum for the participation of regional organizations for exchange of views/experiences, developing a common understanding on major issues of common interest. World Trade Organization and UNESCAP can play a coordinating role for the said purpose and can provide guidance and technical support, mainly in the form of capacity building of the different regional organizations and their member states.

 

As a follow up to the recently signed ECO Trade Agreement, ECO is planning to organize a Workshop aimed at learning from experiences elsewhere including those from ASEAN in the context of AFTA. They would like to invite ASEAN and UNESCAP experts to share their expertise.

 

Investment Promotion

 

On the investment promotion side ECO can work closely with the UNESCAP and other regional organizations like ASEAN, SAARC and PIF. It can learn much from the ASEAN experiences as well as work with other regional organizations for the attainment of common investment area. The Agreement on Promotion and Protection of Investment in the ECO region can be extended to a Regional Investment Agreement.

 

Involvement of Private Sector

 

ECO is pursuing a policy of private sector investment in the promotion of regional trade and investment. The ECO Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ECO-CCI) has been reactivated for the said purpose. It can share its experiences with UNESCAP and other regional organizations and can also take benefit from their experiences in the promotion of private sector involvement in the promotion of regional trade. ECO-CCI can be made further effective with the technical help of UNESCAP. UNESCAP and other regional organizations may participate in the Trade Fair/Exhibition and Investment Conference to be organized by ECO-CCI in mid-November 2005 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

 

Capacity Building in Trade Support and Promotion Institutions

 

As majority of the ECO member states are newly independent they are in dire need of capacity building. ECO member states can take benefit from the experiences of UNESCAP and other regional organizations like ASEAN and SAARC by conducting joint training workshops with the experts of these organizations. The personnel of the ECO Secretariat can also be trained by the experts of the developed organizations. The regional organizations of this area can take benefit form the experiences of each other on the implementation of Regional Trade Agreements and Trade Facilitation.

 

Agenda Item 3

Regional cooperation in preparation for a mitigation of natural disasters

 

All organizations made presentations highlighting regional cooperation aspects in preparedness and management of natural disasters, particularly in the light of the experiences gained from the Tsumani of December 2004, which affected 4 SAARC members and 4 from ASEAN. All parties agreed that there was a need to differentiate between cooperation relating to the development of early warning systems from those relating to disaster recovery and reconstruction.

 

UNESCAP indicated that it had been given the responsibility to coordinate activities among agencies relating multi-hazards system. It is already working with UNESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee and the WMO/UNESCAP Panel on Typhoon Cyclones. Cooperation within the Typhoon Committee has recently expanded to have more active interaction with the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management. The meeting also noted that the Asia Pacific Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), Bangkok has been revitalized and UNESCAP has been given responsibility to execute the project funds. ASEAN briefed the meeting on initiatives that have been undertaken in Indonesia and Malaysia relating to natural disasters. Likewise, ECO informed the meeting that the Regional Centre for Natural Disaster Risk Management was being set up in Mashad.

 

Agenda Item 4

Cooperation to facilitate energy infrastructure development, power trade and power inter-connection.

 

Discussions under this item focused on the cooperative activities amongst countries in the respective sub-region, particularly in the areas of electricity production and transmission, gas pipeline, and oil. In particular, the issue of energy security has become a major concern of the member states in the light of recent increased price of oil. In this regard, renewable clean energy such as wind, solar power and bio fuel energy has a role to play in addition to fossil fuel. However, the financial viability of such initiatives is still not fully tested in the Asia Pacific region. There was also a proposal that lot can be gained by control of transmission and distribution losses of energy. In this context, the meeting noted that least developed countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have over 30% in losses compared to just 4% in Japan. This is an area that requires further attention.

 

Another area for cooperation is in facilitating energy infrastructure development, power trade and power interconnection. This is because the distribution of energy resources and related production capacities is uneven among the member states.

 

ECO indicated that a complete and compelling strategic plan needs to be developed with appropriate analysis of the market dynamics and energy trade flows. On initial but critical challenge will be to secure political and financial commitment, followed by extensive multi and bi-lateral negotiations to clearly identify and share the responsibilities among stakeholders. UNESCAP, as an independent and neutral body could play a catalytic role in facilitating the process including facilitating policy dialogues as well as negotiations. In this context, ECO made following proposal for possible joint actions in promoting regional power trade:

 

 

Agenda Item 5

(a)        Promoting effective communication between sub-regional organizations and ESCAP

 

The meeting deliberated on the above agenda item and the following decisions were made:

 

i.          Each organization should designate a Focal Point who will have the responsibility to act as a link to access other bodies with the respective organization. The Focal Points will also be responsible to maintain effective communication link with other regional organizations.

 

ii.          The Meeting welcomed the offer of ASEAN to act as a centre post for disseminating activities undertaken by each organization on 6 monthly basis in the form of newsletters. Each organization would have the responsibility of submitting list of activities to ASEAN for circulation.

 

iii.         The Meeting agreed to the ASEAN proposal for informal meetings amongst the Heads of UNESCAP and Sub-regional Organizations on the sideline of the UN General Assembly Meetings in New York in September beginning 2006. The responsibility of organizing such meetings will be rotated among the organizations.

 

iv.         The Meeting agreed to the proposal of UNESCAP to establish two Working Groups:

 

a)          Working Group on Energy Trade and Power Inter-connection

b)          Working Group on Disaster Management

 

Each Working Group will have two lead agencies. The Working Group (a) above will be led by UNESCAP and ECO, while Working Group (b) will be led by UNESCAP and SAARC with the involvement of other organizations.

 

There is a need to spell out the Terms of Reference which should be simple, in bullet point and no longer than one page.

 

The Working Groups will report to the Consultative Meeting among Executive Heads of Sub-regional Organizations and UNESCAP. The Meeting also agreed that if any Working Group does not function, it would be dispensed.

 

Two other proposals were made for further study:

 

i.          To explore the feasibility of organizing the informal meetings among Heads before formal Consultative Meetings by video conferencing.

ii.          To have a dedicated corner to display printed material of other sub-regional organizations in the Libraries of UNESCAP and each sub-regional organization.

 

The Meeting also agreed that it would be useful to have the Heads of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a Member of the Consultative Meetings. In this regard, UNESCAP will consult the ADB.

 

(b)       Promoting inter-regional cooperation

 

ASEAN informed the participants that it has been requested to promote Asian-African cooperation under the new African-Asian Strategic Partnership. This initiative may be replicated in other sub-regions.

 

The meeting also discussed ways of engaging with the Civil Society. ASEAN informed the meeting that there will be ASIAN/Civil Society Summit on the fringes of the ASEAN Summit in December 2005.

 

Agenda Item 6

 

(a)       Agreement of 10th Consultative Meeting

 

The Agreements reached on various subjects are contained under the respective agenda item.

 

(b)       Date, venue and provisional agenda for the Eleventh Consultative Meeting

 

The meeting noted that based on the rotation principle, the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat is expected to hold the next meeting. In the absence of a representative from PIF at the Meeting, it agreed that the Executive Secretary of UNESCAP would consult the Head of the PIF on the subject.

 

            (c)       Other matters

 

            No other matter was raised

 

Closing of the Meeting

 

            On behalf of all the delegates, the Executive Secretary of UNESCAP thanked the Secretary General of SAARC and his team for successful organization of the Meeting.

  

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