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Workshop on Training of South Asian Economic Journalists on
Bilateral Trade Agreements, Club Hotel Dolphin, Waikkal,
3-4 December, 2005

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  Workshop on Training of South Asian Economic Journalists on Bilateral Trade Agreements, workshop on Training of South Asian Economic Journalists on Bilateral Trade Agreements


A two-day workshop on Training of South Asian Economic Journalists on Bilateral Trade Agreements organized by the IPS in collaboration with the UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo (UNDP-RCC) and South Asian Centre for Economic Journalists (SACEJ), Islamabad, was held at Club Hotel Dolphin, Waikkal, on 3-4 December, 2005.

The objectives of the workshop were:
  • sensitize and build capacity of economic journalists on economic, legal, technical and public interest issues relating to North-South and South-South BTAs, particularly those in which South Asian countries are in the process of participating;
  • understand and analyze the political economy aspects as well as human development implications of BTAs;  
  • promote media activism on regional and bilateral trade issues by exposing the journalists to innovative techniques of reporting on trade issues in general and BTA issues in particular.
  • enhance capacity of media persons to improve the flow of information from academic research to popular public information system. 

The workshop was attended by 35 journalists from Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Some of the outcomes of the training would be fed into the discussion taking place at a high-profile international panel on    Free Trade Agreements in Asia: Trends, Characteristics and Implications for Development being organized by the UNDP-RCC and International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Geneva, on the sidelines of the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of the WTO on 13 December 2005.