The 11th meeting of South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Committee of Expert (CoE) ended here Thursday without making any substantial head way for the regional free trade area pact, a SAARC Secretariat said Friday.

"The CoE failed to hammer out consensus on rules of origin, sensitive list and revenue compensation mechanism, the three outstanding issues of South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) accord," SAARC Secretariat said in a press statement.

"No decisive understanding could be built on those three issues,although extensive discussions on those were held during the meeting," the statement added.

However, the meeting decided to resolve all outstanding issues at the CoE's next meeting.

Of the four outstanding issues of SAFTA accord, SAARC members only finalized the issue of technical assistance to the least developing countries.

The CoE was originally scheduled to be held in Islamabad, but was shifted to Kathmandu in the wake of devastation and loss of life caused by the earthquake in Pakistan.

Source: Xinhua