2nd ECO Ministerial Meeting on Trade to be held in Islamabad
Press Release
H. E. Seyed Mojtaba Arastou, ECO Secretary General, in an interview expressed thew recent activities and events of the Organization. He stated that there would be a meeting with the Heads of four international organization namely UNODC, UNIDO, OPEC and OPEC fund, in Vienna, to discuss the projects under operation with them. He added that cooperation with the international organizations is one of the most important issues of ECO and there are MOUs with these Organizations on different fields of activity. ECO with the financial assistance of EU and Technical assistance of UNODC has already conducted two projects regarding drug control and in this meeting ECO Secretary General would negotiate to prepare the draft of a plan of action on Drug Control in ECO region and then finalizing it to be given to Member States and policy making bodies of the organization.
Mr. Arastou also referred to the 2nd ECO Ministerial Meeting on Trade to be held in Islamabad, tomorrow and added that trade and investment is one of the priorities of ECO and promotion of investment in the region is one of the main goals. In order to do so, after the 1st ECO Ministerial Meeting on Trade in Tehran in the year 2000, the draft of a trade framework agreement was prepared that was considered and finalized by 5 high level expert groups and now it would be forwarded to Islamabad Meeting to be approved and signed by all ECO Trade Ministers. Attracting Foreign Investment would also be a part of the agenda of the meeting. The first Foreign Investment promotion of ECO region was held in Kish Island in last February and the second meeting of such is going to be held in Kabul in near future.
ECO Secretary General also stressed that the Organization could attain the satisfactory level of cooperation with UN specialized agencies in the field of trade, especially ITC (International Trade Center). There have been three projects so far to promote trade in the region with ITC and there is going to be a new plan for further cooperation of the two Organizations for the year 2004. Mr. Arastou added that after signing MOU with World Customs Organization, ECO attended the first general assembly meeting of WCO and in assistance with them there would be capacity building projects and workshops on harmonizing the customs regulations of ECO Member States, in order to facilitate trade among them.
Mr. Arastou noted that in the Islamabad Trade Ministerial meeting, other than ECO Ministers of Trade, more than 10 representatives of International Organizations are going to participate.
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