LAHORE - A two-day meeting of the special body of South Asian Association for Regional Corporation (Saarc) countries on "Chemical and Chemical Products" started at a hotel here on Monday.

The meeting is being hosted by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), which is the National Standard Body of Pakistan under the administrative control of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan. The inaugural session was chaired by Muhammad Zaheer, chairperson of Sectoral Technical Committee of SARSO, while Manager for Afghanistan National Standard Authority Mirza Muhammad Ayubi, Dechen Chiphel from Bhutan, Senior Deputy Director of Sri Lanka Standard Institution DS Fernando and Assistant Director Gayani Manchanayake.

Programme Officer at SAARC Secretariat in Katmandu Manzoor Riaz, Tashi Wangchuk, Khawaja Ghulam Muhayyuddin from SARSO Secretariat, Secretary of PSQCA Ghulam Umer Qazi, Director Akhtar A. Bhugio, Waseem Mirza, Syed Iqbal, Nazir Hussain, Ahmed Nadeem Iqbal, Khuram Mateen, Asghar Ali, Aini Zahra and other local experts from PSQCA and other industries attended the event. Indian and Bangladeshi experts also participated in the meeting through video link. During the meeting, the experts made a comparison of different standards of SAARC countries on toilet soap, shampoo, hair colour, cosmetics and other health care products and expressed their commitment to make one standard for one region. They also aimed to remove all the bars in making standards for SAARC countries so that trade among these countries can be promoted.

All experts expressed their point of views in building standards on chemical and chemical products for SAARC countries and briefed the participants.

SARSO is an organization of standard body of SAARC countries including Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, Afghanistan National Standard Authority, Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute, Bureau of Indian Standards, Nepal Bureau of Standard and Metrology, Bhutan Standard Bureau, Ministry of Economic Development Male and Sri Lanka Standard Institute and it has been formed to promote coordination among SAARC countries on standardization for SAARC countries.