Minutes Of The Meetings Of The Swarbica Member Countries,Beijing, 2nd & 3rd SEP. 1996

The first meeting of the representatives of the SWARBICA member countries was held in Beijing on 2nd September 1996, The following attended the meeting.
1. Dr. K. D. G. Wimalaratni, Director, National Archives, Sri Lanka
2. Mrs. Hashi Siddiky, Director, Department of Archives & Libraries, Bangladesh
3. Mrs. Sani Maiya Rana, Chief of National Archives, Nepal
4. Dr. Kalus Oldenhague, Treasurer, I.C.A.
5. M. Atique Zafar Sheikh, Director General, National Archives of Pakistan, Pakistan
The meeting discussed at length the matters relating to treasury and re-activating the SWARBICA Branch. It was decided that India should be asked to submit full accounts of the period in which the treasury operated in New Delhi.
In order to activate the branch it was considered necessary that meeting of the SWARBICA Executive Board should be held immediately. In this connection it was decided in the first instance that Iran may be requested to convene the meeting. Dr. Kalus Olden Hague suggested that a seminar or symposium may also be combined with this meeting so that it is possible to get FIDA GRANT to support the members for attending this SWABICA meeting.

The Agenda for the meeting was also discussed and it was agreed that the important item of the agenda of the meeting should be
(1) Election of office Bearers
(2) Settlement of Account
(3) Publication of SWARBICA Journal
(4) Position of the Guide Project in bilateral program between SWARBICA countries

It was also discussed that the new membership drive should be activated whereby Maldives, Bhutan• may be persuaded to become members of the SWARBICA.
The 2nd meeting of the SWARBICA representatives in Beijing was held on 3rd September in which the following members attended the meeting:
1. Seyed Hassan Shahrestani, Director General, Iran National Archives Organization, Tehran.
2. Dr. K.D.G. Wimalaratni, Director, National Archives Sri Lanka.
3. Mrs. Sani Maiya Rana, Chief of National Archives, Nepal.
4. Mr. Atique Zafar Sheikh,

Director General, National Archives of Pakistan, Pakistan.
In this meeting the proposal of the first day meeting was discussed with the Director General, Iran National Archives Organization who agreed to hold a meeting of SWARBICA Branch in Tehran sometime in April/May, 1997 He also agreed that local hospitality will be provided by the Iran Govt. However, he pointed out that funds are not available for bearing the cost of air tickets of the member countries. In view of this we have to ask for FIDA GRANT to meet this expenditure. It was also stressed in this meeting that since Iran is holding SWARBICA Treasury, they should sort out treasury matters with India as soon as possible .It was also decided in the meeting that if per diem is not provided by the ICA or host country or member countries etc. the participants of the meeting may be given some allowance from SWARBICA Treasury to meet the contingent expenditures.
The Secretary General of SWARBICA informed the CAD meeting in Beijing on 8th September. About the decisions taken at the SWARBICA meetings which were highly appreciated by CAD members and they assured that all possible assistance would be provided to SWARBICA for -re-activating the Branch and holding a meeting/seminar in Tehran. It may be however, be pointed out that India was not present in the Beijing congress. India was therefore absent from the SWARBICA meeting. However, representative from Bangladesh had to leave the Beijing congress on 3rd September due to her illness .Therefore; she was not able to attend the meeting on 3rd September, 1996.