Dhaka, July 8 - The preference shown by South Asian nations for bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) may lead to the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) eventually becoming redundant, trade analysts from the region have said.

Attending a conference 'Managing Regional Integration in South Asia' here, analysts warned that though bilateral FTAs helped increase trade and investment between the parties, the benefits to weaker or smaller economies with limited bargaining power vis a vis the larger ones might be less.

Progress in bilateral FTAs and emergence of trans-regional trading blocs, such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation that includes five of the seven member states under South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) 'casts a shadow of doubt over relevance of the SAFTA', the Daily Star newspaper said Wednesday.

SAFTA, which came into force in 2006 after years of debating and delays, may eventually become redundant if the focus on bilateral trade sharpens, analysts from the region said.

The conference on managing regional integration takes place at a time when a trade liberalisation programme for SAFTA suffers mainly from disputes between the two major economies in the SAARC bloc, India and Pakistan, the newspaper noted.