| Summary/Abstract |
It was unlikely for the plebeians to have missed the self-congratulatory tide which followed the January 2004 Islamabad SAARC summit. The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement signed by the foreign ministers of the seven SAARC countries was hailed as the biggest outcome of the summit and the framework for the Free Trade Area (FTA) which SAFTA envisions was projected as the remedy to alleviate the economic woes of the region. While the thaw in the relations between the two 'biggest' players in the area was a positive step, setting aside the compulsions of an upcoming election in India and the ex-gratia benefits of good neighbourly behaviour on the part of Pakistan, the agreement on trade liberalisation and intra-region free trade in goods needs to be reviewed in the face of pretentious optimism.
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