Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu speaks at a discussion marking the 31st anniversary of the establishment of SAARC, at SARSO Building at Tejgaon in the capital on Tuesday. Speakers at a discussion on Tuesday stressed the need for forming harmonisation of standards system for SARRC region in order to boost up regional trade among the SAARC countries. They also said, though 1.7 billion people are living in SAARC countries, the volume of internal trade among the SAARC countries is only five percent of the regions total external trade. The discussants came up with the remarks at a programme held at SARSO Building in Tejgaon area in the capital. The South Asian Regional Standards Organization (SARSO) organised the event marking the 31st anniversary of the establishment of the SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation). Amir Hossain Amu, Minister for Industries was present at the programme as chief guest. Industries Secretary Md. Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, Foreign Minsitry Director (SAARC) Rahat Bin Zaman and SARSO Director General Syed Humayun Kabir and Director Indu Bikram Joshi spoke at the programme. Addressing the programme, Industries Minister said SAARC countries have progressed remarkably in terms of socio-economic development by implementing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Stressing the need for bilateral or multilateral investment, he said, “It is important to establish industries by bilateral or multilateral investment in SAARC region for better supply of quality products and services in this region. It would help the countries in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”. Mentioning the increasing trend of bilateral trade between Bangladesh and India, the minister said, “In order to remove technical glitch in bilateral trade, BSTI and BIS, the standards organisations of Bangladesh and India respectively have signed an agreement recently in this regard”, he said. He hoped, this would help reduce trade gap between the countries. The minister also informed that Bangladesh is keen to sign such kind of agreements with other SAARC countries for boosting up its trade. The organisers informed that SARSO has already selected 36 common products for labeling as harmonization of standards. Among others, high commissioners of SARRC countries, government high officials, entrepreneurs and businessman attended the programme.
