The Hindu : New Delhi News : Capitalise on mutual strengths, SAARC nations told

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Friday, Jan 07, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Capitalise on mutual strengths, SAARC nations told

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 6. The Minister of State for External Affairs, Rao Inderjit Singh, today called upon the member nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to capitalise on their strengths for offsetting deficiencies in the region.

Inaugurating the 6th SAARC Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan here, Mr. Singh said: "The setting up of SAARC was basically aimed at leveraging intra-regional cooperation in its diverse ramifications to ensure that the strength of one of its constituent countries in certain spheres could be used to overcome the deficiencies of the other nations in these areas and vice versa," said Mr. Singh.

Mr. Singh stated that the SAARC series of fairs has been a significant initiative as it provides reliable and invaluable fora for exchanging notes on the status of each other's development in diverse sectors and utilising these to benefit the other constituents of the region. He hoped that the present fair would give added impetus to the process of intra-regional cooperation.

Expressing solidarity with the other SAARC countries affected by the tsunami disaster, Mr. Singh called for mutual cooperation in helping each other and added that life must move on.

Welcoming the guests on the occasion, the Chairman and Managing Director of ITPO, N.N. Khanna, termed SAARC fair as a symbol of regional unity and informed that 155 companies from six countries -- including 65 companies from India -- are participating in the fair.

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