BAKU (Azerbaijan), May 5: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday called for establishing an ECO free trade area, inter-regional oil and gas pipelines and said that an energy grid could create inter-linkages necessary for making the Economic Cooperation Organisation more effective.

Addressing the 9th ECO summit, Mr Aziz stressed closer coordination of policies among the 10-member grouping and said: “For ECO to become a coherent organization, it must create inter-dependencies and synergies, especially in areas of energy, transportation and trade.”

He said efforts must be made to establish inter-regional oil and gas pipelines as well as power grids from energy rich to energy deficient states.

The prime minister said the ECO region was well placed to become a major hub of energy supply. “We can take the initial step of diversifying supplies within the region,” he said.

Mr Aziz sharing Pakistan’s vision for the ECO said the establishment of a regional power grid would contribute to the economic integration of the region.

He called for establishment of an ECO free trade area and urged quicker finalization of the Optional Protocol on Fast Track through an early consensus.

He said Pakistan has assumed the role of the coordinating country for ECOTA and it believed its establishment was well within the realm of possibility, provided member states give it the highest priority.

He said transportation links needed to be enhanced to provide corridors for cooperation, people-to-people contacts, tourism, cultural exchanges and free flow of ideas.

The prime minister said improved transportation would also facilitate greater flow of intra-regional trade enabling better regional specialization while promoting complementarities in the economies for common advantage of all member states.

He said free trade was central to regional economic integration “as it can unlock latent energies and transform socio-economic landscapes”.

Mr Aziz said the ECO represented best hope to foster trade and economic linkages in the region.

He pointed at the positive initiatives taken for the economic uplift of its people and referred to the Transit Transport Framework Agreement which would come into force this month.

He said the ECO Trade and Development Bank had also set up its Board of Governors.

He, however, also noted the “multiple new challenges” faced by the region, ranging from disease and malnutrition to environmental degradation and natural, disasters.

He attributed the inordinate delays in undertaking key activities as one of the reasons impeding ECO’s growth and said that it had a long way to go to achieve the goal of regional integration.

Mr Aziz said the ECO had taken positive initiatives, including plans to deal with Avian Influenza and develop a Regional Centre for Risk Management of Natural Disasters.

He said the devastating earthquake in Pakistan had underscored the need for such plans for disaster mitigation. He expressed his profound gratitude to member states and the ECO secretariat for a generous response in the aftermath of the Oct 8 earthquake.

He said Pakistan could play a pivotal role in the region owing to its location and to bridge the regions of Central, South and West Asia while providing the shortest route to sea for land-locked Central Asian states.

He said work would soon be completed on a deepwater port at Gwadar in the Persian Gulf, while construction of road and rail transportation networks was also underway to complement Pakistan’s air links with the vital regions.

He spoke of another project to establish a power grid from Tajikistan to Pakistan and said there was also the potential to establish such pipelines through Pakistan to Western China.—APP