MEA Consultative Committee discusses SAARC, Africa

New Delhi, July 18 (UNI) The Consultative Committee on External Affairs met here today and discussed the progress made by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and India's partnership with African countries.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee who chaired the meeting, briefed the Members on the developments in SAARC, particularly the successful 14th SAARC Summit held here on April 3-4, the expansion of the forum to eight and participation by five observer countries, a spokesman of the Ministry said.

He also briefed the Members on two important agreements signed during SAARC Summit--establishment of the SAARC food bank and South Asian University--and other initiatives within SAARC like India's offer to take up asymmetrical responsibilities including unilateral measures to liberalise trade, visa, tourism.

The theme of physical, economic and people-to-people connectivity was also underlined by the Minister.

Mr Mukherjee briefed the Members on India's partnership with African countries including initiatives taken in the field of technical cooperation, human resource development, investment, trade including credit lines, peacekeeping operations and support for NEPAD.

He also spoke about the progress made by India in implementation of a PAN-African e-Network project.

The discussions on the two subjects would be continued at the next Consultative Committee meeting.

UNI