The eight countries participating in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program in Urumqi, China, are expected to take a major step forward in broadening and deepening the program, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday.

The 5th Ministerial Conference on CAREC will open Wednesday next week in Urumqi for a three-day meeting which will bring together ministers and senior officials from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistanm, as well as representatives of CAREC's six partner multilateral institutions (MI), bilateral and other regional organizations.

"At the conference, ministers will consider a Comprehensive Action Plan to guide the strategic management of the CAREC Program and will also discuss ways to accelerate the momentum of regional cooperation in Central Asia and its neighbors," said Craig Steffensen, Head of ADB's CAREC Unit.

"The Action Plan represents a significant step forward in terms of clarifying the program's mission, goals, and agenda for the coming years. It should enable the program to strengthen its important contribution to economic growth and social development," he said.

About 200 private sector representatives and government officials will also gather in Urumqi next week for the first CAREC Business Development Forum, which is intended to discuss investment opportunities in CAREC countries and explore ways for the private sector to play a more active role in regional cooperation initiatives.

CAREC is a broad partnership of the eight participating countries and six MIs which include ADB, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program and World Bank.

Initiated in 1997, the Program aims to promote practical, results-based regional projects and policy initiatives critical to trade expansion, sustainable development and meeting new challenges in a rapidly growing and increasingly integrated " Eurasian supercontinent," according to ADB.

It also wants to improve living standards and reduce poverty in CAREC countries through more efficient and effective regional economic cooperation by focusing on financing infrastructure projects and improving the region's policy environment in the priority areas of transport, trade facilitation, trade policy, and energy.

For the three-year period from 2006 to 2008, CAREC's six MI partners plan to provide more than 40 loans to participating countries worth over 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in support of regional investments in the priority areas, said ADB.

Source: Xinhua