PAECO Moot Ends; Unified Laws In ECO States Suggested

Islamabad, Feb 13, IRNA -- The first conference of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Economic Cooperation Organization (PAECO) concluded here Tuesday with speakers suggesting unified legal standards for ECO countries. The House held discussion on `Parliamentˈs oversight role in promoting intra-regional trade and investments to ensure sustainable socio-economic development in the ECO Regionˈ that was opened by Fehmida Mirza, Speaker National Assembly and President of the PAECO. In her address after assuming the office of the PAECO President, Fehmida Mirza said the principles of Izmir Treaty had been guiding the governments to seek a peaceful, progressive and enabling environment for the sustainable human and economic development of our people and PAECOˈs establishment manifests the same resolve. She said the PAECO Charter envisions the ECO parliamentarians to jointly promote common values, interests and opportunities and invoke the dictum of ˈParliamentary Diplomacyˈ in fostering democracy, peace and development in our region. She said besides deciding to hold PAECO conference annually, the members have agreed to provide an institutional structure to PAECO by framing its rules for the conduct of its business. She said the topic of the discussion held key for opening future vistas of a meaningful cooperation and was aimed at enabling our parliamentarians to identify a tangible role for themselves for promoting intra-regional trade and investments. Speaker of the Majlis Shoura-e-Islami of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Larijani said the ECO countries should explore and benefit each othersˈ potential for regional growth. He said Iran was ready to put its services at the disposal of other ECO countries to assist them in the areas in which Iran has excelled. He said Iran and Azerbaijan were rich of oil and gas resources, adding the former had been supplying gas to Turkey and work on an identical project between Pakistan and Iran was underway. He proposed forming special committees to pursue the PAECO decisions so that the governments could allocate budgets and added that in order to facilitate the trade and investment, it was essential to uniform the legal standards of member states./end