KABUL (SW): Preparations are in full swing for a yet another phenomenal annual session of the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), a forum that has been managed to promote stabilization in Afghanistan and South and Central Asian regional economic integration, in Kabul this week.
Following the fact that regional co-operation is central to economic growth, poverty reduction, and political, economic and regional security, Afghanistan hosted the First Regional Economic Co-operation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA I) in 2005 and it would now host the RECCA VI on 3-4 September 2015.
The conference, attended by eleven regional countries, was a building block for an Afghan-led regional cooperation process and emphasized that all efforts shall be made to support and accelerate the implementation of various international transmission links, and joint steps shall be taken with consensus to promote and efficiently utilize the hydropower potential of the region.
Furthermore to cooperate in the field of regional sharing the benefits of water, counter-narcotics, transport, energy transport, trade facilitation, business climate.
Participants of the Conference recognized that the Kabul Conference on Regional Economic Cooperation thus builds on important steps in recent years, including inter alia the Good Neighborly Relations Declaration of 2002, the Berlin Agreements of 2003, the Dubai Declaration of 2003, and the Bishkek Conference of 2004.
The Conference noted that a strategy of development for Afghanistan which is based on cooperation with regional countries creates significant possibilities for reducing poverty and for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the whole region.
It also recognized that the various regional organizations and programs, in particular the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program, and the Central and South Asia Transport and Trade Forum and others make valuable contribution to improve the extent and scope of regional economic cooperation.
To formalize this process, it was decided that all the regional capitals would hold the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, one after the other.
Preceding the high-level Ministerial Meeting on 4 September, an Academic Forum and a Regional Business Forum, held on 3 September will engage scholars and business representatives from across the region and beyond around critical regional economic cooperation themes, including in the areas of trade & transport, energy & resource corridors, streamlining customs & border crossings, and attracting investment & technical know-how from the private sector
Salahuddin Rabbani, Minister of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has said it is the government’s sincere aim to make it the most successful RECCA conference thus far, building on the success we achieved at RECCA-V in 2012 in Dushanbe.
“Already this year, our two emerging energy corridors TAPI and CASA 1000 are picking up momentum. Additional momentum is being generating by the large-scale financial commitment that India and China are making to the region, which the ports of Chabahar and Gwadar will figure prominently in. The Lapis Lazuli and the Five Nations Railway project corridors are additional contributors to regional momentum”, the Minister noted in his message.
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