The upcoming SAARC Summit will provide an ideal opportunity to showcase the country’s development especially the transition and the setting-up of a democratic machinery in the East which had been devastated by terrorism for over two decades Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said.

Outlining the programme and the preparations ahead of the Summit to media at the BMICH, Minister Bogollagama said the decision to host the summit is timely as Sri Lanka is able to point to a positive development in the country’s eastern province, once a hotbed of terrorism and terrorist activity but now a political ‘green house’ where political pluralism and democracy are being nurtured, the Foreign Minister added.

Foreign Minister Bogollagama also spelled out the some of the specific developments that are expected to emerge from the forthcoming summit. One would be the signing of the agreement on the SAARC Development Fund which will be set up with a little over $300 million. On the basis of the ratio for each country the members will contribute $207 million. India will top that up with an additional $100 million.

Another proposal that is very much in the mind of President Rajapaksa is a regional buffer stock of food that member countries would be able to use in times of emergency.

Among other matters that are expected to be discussed are mutual legal assistance to deal with offences and offenders of a transnational nature such as latter day terrorism, money laundering and human smuggling.

The establishment of a SAARC University in Southern Delhi, the SAARC Tele-Medicine project, the ‘Common Currency Mechanism’ within the SAARC region, are some of the other topics high on the agenda.