President of SAARC Chamber Ruwan Edirisinghe Friday said state-of-the-art 10-storey building of chamber headquarters in Islamabad costing rupees one billion after completion, will be a symbol of peace, beacon of prosperity, progress, an effective catalyst for SAARC's rescue and resuscitation besides inculcating the spirit of trust with its neighbours, showing solidarity, and forging with them a habit of cooperation.
Chairing a high level meeting of the building committee here he said SAARC CCI headquarters will also provide a platform to communities of the region for coming together and discussing the prospects of doing business together, a press release said. He said it was the top priority of the SAARC CCI agenda that all due efforts would be initiated to forge good relations with all SAARC member states and for this, we have to commit to and accelerate our efforts towards forging closer bilateral and regional partnerships and economic integration within the subcontinent and beyond.
He is much sanguine about the future of the SAARC CCI and said we will have to underwrite the creation of regional public goods for South Asians to integrate sitting here from chamber permanent headquarter. We can utilize this capacious building for launching pad of optimal utilization of the region's natural resources, building regional infrastructure, creating connectivity within the region and with the world - with energy grids, cross-border transport networks, coastal shipping, air links, roads, railways and waterways, besides flood and other natural disaster mitigation and prevention measures.
It can implement trade facilitation measures, thereby lowering transaction costs and generating greater regional investment and employment. Ruwan said South Asian cooperation faces multiple challenges as this constitutes the world's second least developed region after Sub-Saharan Africa and its per capita GDP, in terms of purchasing power parity, is three times below the global average while it has more poor people than the rest of the world.
Despite this, he said, SAARC region holds immense trade and investment potential and to actualize that potential special focus and effort is required for regional integration. He said SAARC member countries must focus on removal of non-tariff barriers and must work for enhancing B2B interaction to boost trade.
Earlier, Chairman Building Committee VP SAARC chamber Pakistan chapter Iftikhar Ali Malik apprising the participants about the progress said 95 per cent structure of the building has been completed under the supervision of high profile internationally accredited architects and designers. He said the government of Pakistan and magnates have contributed 80 per cent of the total of the cost of the project valued at rupees one billion and hoped that it will be completed before the end of current calendar.