The 4th SAARC Energy Ministers meeting which concluded on Thursday in Dhaka, reviewed the draft SAARC inter governmental framework agreement on Energy co-operation in Electricity. Addressing a press conference at the end of the day- long Ministerial level conference, Bangladesh’s state Minister for Energy, Mohammad Enamul Haque said the draft of the framework agreement was reviewed and it is expected that the agreement will be finalized soon. The Ministerial meeting also adopted the SAARC Regional Energy Trade study. The Ministers also decided to conduct studies for technical standardization and Harmonisation to facilitate electricity exchange among the SAARC member countries. Earlier, addressing the inaugural session of the day long meet, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stressed on the need for SAARC member countries to collectively address the challenge of energy needs. She said, that as we embark on ensuring regional economic integration and inter-dependence, there is a huge potential to share knowledge, technology and resources in the energy sector to facilitate sustainable development. Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who led the Indian delegation at the meeting said that the countries in the region are taking some concrete steps to establish basic inter-connections on a bilateral basis which will form the building blocks of the ultimate goal of a regional grid-connectivity. He also expressed India’s willingness to share its best practices and energy efficiency programmes with the member countries. The 4th SAARC energy minister’s meeting has helped the member states in moving forward towards strengthening regional co-operation in the energy sector. The draft SAARC intergovernmental framework agreement for Energy Co-operation in Electricity aims to promote cross border electricity exchanges and trade to achieve optimal use of regional electricity generating resources. It would allow the national grid operators to jointly develop coordinated procedures for the secure and reliable operation of the inter-connecting grids of the member states and prepare scheduling, dispatch, energy accounting and settlement procedures for cross border trade. Apart from this the SAARC regional energy trade study is expected to serve as blueprint for co-operation in energy trade, intergrid connections development of efficient conventional and non conventional energy sources and the development of a SAARC market for electricity. It was also agreed that India will host the next meeting of the SAARC Energy Ministers in 2013.