Indian finance minister’s no-show doesn’t matter: Dar

ISLAMABAD: Playing down New Delhi’s move to isolate Islamabad in the region, Pakistan on Friday said India’s decision not to send its finance minister to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) finance ministers’ conference hardly mattered.

“India’s (finance minister’s) absence hardly matters,” Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told a press conference after the conclusion of eighth Saarc finance ministers’ conference. However, Dar hastily added that the individuals do not matter but countries do.



Out of the eight-member countries, four did not send their finance ministers. Either their deputy ministers or bureaucrats represented India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. India’s economic affairs secretary attended the moot.

Dar said Afghanistan’s finance minister was due to arrive but an attack on an American University in Kabul led to cancellation of his visit. Kabul’s ambassador in Islamabad, Dr Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal represented his country at the conference.

The relations between India and Pakistan have soured in recent months due to growing Indian atrocities in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Defence and security analysts say

India was trying to isolate Pakistan in the region by influencing the decisions of other member countries.

While emphasising that regional economic cooperation can weigh out conflicts, Dar said sending finance ministers to attend the moot was an internal decision of every country.

He also expressed his frustration over lack of progress on the decisions made in various Saarc meetings. Even after three decades of its existence, Saarc is not able to take off, he said.



The finance minister said implementation on past decisions had been a serious problem and Saarc was the least integrated and least developed region in the world, having only 5% intra-regional trade.

“The participants also complained about the weak physical connectivity in the region, which adds to the cost of trade,” he said, while laying stress on having direct air links among all the Saarc countries.

Earlier, while speaking at the opening session, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan believed that there were Saarc solutions to our regional issues by fully supporting all initiatives taken at the Saarc platform, its ideals and objectives.

“Pakistan shares the perspectives that connectivity is critical to the progress and prosperity of the region and supports in principle the road, air, rail and water connectivity with the region,” he added.

Dar said there was a need to intensify the efforts on reduction, removal of non-tariff and para-tariff barriers, trade facilitation measures and investment cooperation.

The ministers of the member states also finalised recommendations that would be considered by the leaders at the forthcoming 19th Saarc Summit to be held in Islamabad in November this year.

In their country statements, the finance ministers and heads of delegations emphasised the need for accelerating the process towards South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) in a phased and planned manner as mentioned in the declaration of 18th Saarc Summit.



Strengthening regional trade through full and expeditious implementation of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta) in order to achieve deeper integration and move towards SAEU was also underlined.

They also underlined the need for improved connectivity in the region including through land, sea and air route and early signing of Motor Vehicle and Railways Agreements.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2016.