Senior officials from SAARC countries discussed the proposed outline of two ADB supported studies:

• SAARC Regional Economic Integration (REI) and
• Regional Coordinated Surveillance Mechanism.

The first study aims to prepare a detailed road map for achieving a South Asian Economic Union, while the second supports the design of an effective regional macroeconomic and financial surveillance framework to avert macroeconomic and financial stress arising from external shocks. Ahmed Saleem, SAARC Secretary General and Bruno Carrasco, Director, SAPF opened the workshop.

SAARC and ADB also launched the joint publication,
"Development of Capital Market in SAARC countries".