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| Sunday, 29 August 2004 |
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Accent on regional tourism, fisheries development by Chamitha Kuruppu The fifth Council of Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation (IOR-ARC) which met in Colombo has recognised intra-regional tourism and co-operation in fisheries as the main priorities of the council. Continuous discussions on fishing development projects and development of intra-regional tourism are scheduled to be held among member states during the next two years. The IOR-ARC should not propose 'too many' projects but focus on implementing issues that were common to member states, Chairman of the IOR-ARC Ministerial Council in Colombo, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, told the media on Friday. Steps would be taken to prepare an inventory of resources belonging to each member, which would be useful when implementing development projects in future, the minister said. It has also approved a clustering process that would enable a minimum of five member states to formulate and implement projects under the ambit of IOR-ARC. This decision was taken with a view to achieving a fast track and result oriented approach, Kadirgamar said. He said that "all 18 member states rarely showed a keenness about projects conducted by the IOR-ARC. Therefore, any group of five countries willing to work under a project, could do so and it would be considered as an IOR-ARC project". One of the features of the proposed clustering process was that member States in the same region would be able to implement Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA) and Free Trade Agreements among them. On a proposal by Sri Lanka, it was also agreed to consider modalities for an IOR-ARC Business Travel Card to facilitate business travel within the IOR-ARC region. The council also agreed to upgrade the level of interaction with the dialogue partners - China, Egypt, United Kingdom, France and Japan. The IOR-ARC concluded its meeting in Colombo on Thursday and the visiting delegates described it as a success as the Council of Ministers representing the 18 member states reached several key decisions, which would ensure the continued progress of IOR-ARC at a crucial juncture in the life of the organisation. |
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