Many ask what Sri Lanka received from hosting the 15th SAARC Summit in Colombo. Nawaz Rajabdeen, Vice President of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and President of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) said the benefits were many. "As an international observer, I have come across many people who used to ask ‘what have we received from the SAARC Summit?’ I often used to respond that it was the intangible benefits which cannot be quantified and not the tangible benefits which can be quantified. "The fact of the matter is, I believe with deep conviction, that the relations and friendship as well as the trust the host would establish with the so called ‘guests’ i.e. global investors, could not be quantified but could be used in many ways," he said. He said that in the medium to long term the benefits would be manifest when investments, FDIs, FIIs, international joint ventures, mergers and partnerships and promotion of trade come in to the country as a result for having played the gracious host. "The total cost of the SAARC Summit is estimated to have been in the vicinity of USD 30 million. It is important to note that 86 percent of the total budget of the SAARC was expended for capital expenditure," Rajabdeen said, quoting Foreign Ministry officials. He noted that because of the Colombo SAARC Summit selected roads and highways had been restored and rehabilitated along with a few institutions such as the BMICH and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Economic benefits The Agreement on South Asian Regional Standards Organization was signed at the 15th SAARC Summit. "The intrinsic benefits of this initiative would be that the standards of the goods and services would be consonant with each of the countries, thus increasing bilateral and multilateral trade. Also, the standardization would reduce the cost of production as well," Rajabdeen said. The Summit addressed and mapped out the operational aspects and other related issues of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA). "The region is less integrated than many other regions in the world. Total intra-regional trade is still a mere 5.3 percent where as other similar regional blocs have intra-regional trade ranging from 25 to 65 percent," he said. "Despite the fact that the SAARC region is home to 24 percent of the world’s people, the share of the global GDP is a mere 2.8 percent." Rajabdeen said that the opportunities and economic vistas open to the region, as well as to Sri Lanka, as a result of integration should be exploited. "The Iran-Pakistan-India trilateral gas pipeline and hydropower projects, which are in the planning stages, would be beneficial to Sri Lanka once they become operational. "The newest member of SAARC, Afghanistan, would offer unprecedented opportunities for development of the country and Sri Lanka could leverage these opportunities and offer employment to Sri Lankans to be engaged in the construction sector in Afghanistan. Rajabdeen said that tourist arrivals had improved because the SAARC Summit showed that the country was safe to visitors. "The best and most efficacious course of action to counter, so called, travel advisories issued by certain countries would be to globally demonstrate the stability and safety of the country than to counter them with responses and rejoinders," he said, adding that the Colombo Summit did just that. Again quoting Foreign Ministry officials, he said that over 20 bilateral meetings between the leadership of Sri Lanka and, member states of SAARC and observer states took place on the margins of the Summit while other countries too engaged in about 30 bilateral with each other. "It is needless to state that such meetings on the side lines of the SAARC Summit in Colombo would convincingly reflect the stability, peace, safety and capacity of the city of Colombo and the country. Rajabdeen said that as the Chair of SAARC, Sri Lanka had the privilege to articulate and accentuate positions and issues, on behalf of the SAARC, with other regional blocs and groupings such as the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, GCC, Mercusor, OIC, G-8, G-15, Commonwealth, IOR-ARC and APEC among others. |