Senior officials of the SAARC member states start arriving at Dhaka Monday to prepare the agenda for the 13th SAARC Summit set for November 12-13.

Poverty alleviation, economic integration of the region, elimination of terrorism and disaster management preparedness with early warning system will come up as the summit's prime agenda.

Besides, the summit will also focus on implementation of the social charter, empowering SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) secretariat and simplification of visa regime in the region.

South Asia is the home of maximum number of poor emphasizing both poverty alleviation and enhanced intra-regional trade which is less than four percent at present.

Officials said that Dhaka will propose declaring the third decade of the South Asian forum from 2005-1015 as the "SAARC Decade of Poverty Alleviation."

Dhaka would propose substantial fund raising for implementation of SAARC projects, mainly to take measures for poverty alleviation. Initiatives will be taken to streamline various proposed funds into a single fund with an initial capital of US$300 million.

Four agreements concerning avoidance of double taxation, promotion of investment, simplification of customs procedure and establishment of SAARC Arbitration Center would be signed during the summit.

The senior officials of SAARC Programming Committee begin a one-and-a-half-day formal meeting Tuesday. The Programming Committee meeting will be followed by the meetings of the Standing Committee comprising the foreign secretaries of the SAARC nations on November 9-10 and the meetings of the Council of Ministers comprising the foreign ministers of the SAARC countries on November 10-11.

Dhaka has been sealed off with an unprecedented security cordon at all entry points to the capital and roads are dotted with security checkpoints, ahead of the seven-nation SAARC summit.

The elite personnel of the Special Security Forces and President's Guard Regiment took charge of security from midnight Sunday, with full deployment beginning Monday morning.

Over 30,000 law enforcers will be deployed for the overall security dragnet and a limited number of defense personnel will also join in to impose a security bulwark within the capital.

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2005)