SAARC Trade Portal Launched to Boost South Asian Trade for Importers, Exporters and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

06th November 2009, www.dailymirror.lk

Importers, exporters and small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of the South Asian region now have access to important trade – related information with a click of the mouse.

The portal – www.saarctrade.info was launched recently in Kathmandu, Nepal. The official launch event was attended by several trade ministers from the SAARC member countries, representatives from the business community and public organizations from the region. Sri Lanka was represented by (Prof) G.L. Peiris, Minister of Export Development and International Trade and members from the selected Network Partner Organisations to the project – The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, The Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry of Sri Lanka, The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka and the Department of Commerce.

The initiative enjoys support of 26 leading trade bodies, including trade departments, Chambers and Industrial associations from all eight SAARC member states, providing and continuously validating the content of the portal.

The portal, first of its kind in South Asia, is a state-of-the-art product of the SAARC trade information project and is jointly implemented by SAARC Information centre (SIC) Nepal and German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The initiators of the portal, pursue the approach that having access to reliable trade information generated additional business because more and better information facilitates faster, more efficient and more cost-effective ways to realize intra-regional trading and business opportunities. As a result, successful businesses will create more employment and thus contribute to the socio-economic development in the SAARC region.

The portal is a single point of access for all current SAARC related business and trade information. It is not only a virtual portal but is backed by a physical network of 26 stakeholders (network partners) from all eight SAARC nations – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – to compile, validate and distribute information to businesses from the region.