President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and ECO Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ECO-CCI), Ghazanfar Bilour will preside the forthcoming statutory meeting of ECO-CCI scheduled to be held on March 5 at Tehran, Iran.

According to an announcement here on Monday, the ECO-CCI meetings will be attended by the representatives of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

It was mentioned that ECO-CCI, a flagship organization of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) which was established in 1990 with all the National Chambers of Commerce and Industry as its members.

Prior to the statutory meetings, there will be six Specialized Committee's meetings on Trade facilitation, Transportation, Tourism, Arbitration, Industry, Investment and SMEs Promotion and Women Entrepreneurs Council on March 3 and 4 respectively.

The current strength of the total trade of all ECO member countries was said to stand at US$ 638 billion reflecting a declining trend as compared to US$ 836 billion in 2012.

Reason behind the decline was attributed to global recession and low oil prices on which this natural resources heavily depend.

The contribution of ECO region in world trade is just two percent which was said to be despite the fact that ECO countries are home to 6.2 percent of world population.

Intra-regional trade accounts 8.4 percent of total trade of world which is far below the potentials available.

The Executive Committee and General Assembly will review lower intra-regional trade and investment, removal of trade barriers, harmonization in trade and investment regulations, SMEs, arbitration and gradual integration of the member state's economies, development of transport and communication, effective infrastructure linking in the region.

Pakistan will hand-over President ship of ECO-CCI for the year 2018-19 to Afghanistan as per the statute of ECO-CCI, it said.