11th Anniversary of R.C.D. (July 21, 1975)

Handicraft is the theme for the issue. A beautiful porcelain vase from Turkey and a highly decorated camel skin vase from Pakistan are depicted respectively against blue and magenta colour panels at the right hand side of the vertical stamp, a beautiful white Tile from Iran is depicted in the hori-zontal stamp against Ultra Marine background. The “RCD” insignia appears in the centre of left hand portion of the stamp surrounded by the lettering “11th Anniversary RCD” which is red for Turkey, blue for Iran and Magenta for Pakistan. ‘Pakistan’ in Urdu and English together appear at the bottom of the left hand portion of the stamps in Cyan, Ultra Marine and Magenta colour respectively for the Turkish, Iranian and Pakistani object.—Thc denomination figures “Rs. 1.25, 60-Paisa and 20-Paisa” with the word ‘postage’ underneath appear at the top left corner of the stamps. Name of the country to which the object belongs is shown in small character along side the left edge of the panel.
To mark the 11th Anniversary on 21 July, 1975, of the establishment of the Regional Co-operation for Development, (R.C.D.) Pakistan, alongwith other two member countries, is issuing a set of three Commemorative Postage stamps. The subject of these stamps is “Handicrafts” of the three countries.
During the past decade the Organisation has been successful in fostering close economic and cultural cooperation among the friendly and brotherly countries of Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. The three countries which share a common religious, cultural and historic heritage, arc undoubtedly destined to play an important role in promoting peace in the region and in improv-ing the lot of their people.
International and regional cooperation has assumed increas-ing importance and acquired a special significance, particularly for the developing countries. In a relatively short period, R.C.D.. which is a manifestation of this new trend, has made consider-able progress in many areas. It has helped in improving means of communication among the three countries. Fruitful coopera-tion has been achieved in the fields of shipping and insurance. Exchange of experts, trainees and scholars under RCD program-mes of Technical Cooperation has been to the mutual benefit of the three countries. Maximum efforts have been made in further-ing closer cooperation in the fields of trade and industry and one can now hope for concrete results. Cultural cooperation has led to greater understanding and appreciation of our common heritage. Industry constitutes one of the major fields of economic collaboration between the R.C.D. countries. Some of the motivating factors are the large size of the market of the region, opportunities for the pooling of resources and technical know-how and advantages accruing from economic collaboration.
The need to have joint purpose enterprises was realised from the very inception of RCD. Accordingly, joint purpose enterprises have been undertaken in various forms, such as joint ownership in the public or private sector, ownership by one country or more with products going to the other(s), creating production capacity in one country with the raw material coming from another, and long-term purchase agreements, based on production facilities in any uf the three countries.
During the decade under review, the member Governments have attained reasonable success in establishing joint-purpose enterprises on the basis of participation and off-take guarantees. Three major projects have already gone into production. These are Bank Note and Security Papers Limited and RCD Ball bearings Limited, both located in Pakistan, and Iranian Aluminium Company located in Iran. Also in production on off-take guarantee basis, are Tungsten Carbide, Borex/Boric Acid. Centrifugal/Special Filters. High Tension Insulators and Tetracycline Projects located in Turkey and Ultramarine Blue Project located in Pakistan.
Besides, there are a number of projects which have been approved in principle, but are yet to go into production, and others on which negotiations are continuing.
In order to facilitate the liberalisation and expansion a trade between the RCD countries various steps have been taken including the setting up of the RCD Chamber of Commerce an Industry, the RCD Shipping Services, the RCD Insurance Pool and the signing of the RCD Agreement on Trade. In view of the slow progress in some fields UNCTAD was requested to under take a study to identify barriers impeding intra-regional trade and make recommendations for their removal. An expert of the UNCTAD has already submitted his report. Some of the recommendations of the report are in the final stages of implementation.
In the field of Postal Communications, there is extensiv4 collaboration between the three Postal Administrations. Intra regional mail is carried at specially reduced rates and the national airlines are being increasingly utilised for regional flights Besides, there .is continuous contact between the postal authorities of the region to improve postal communications system and pooling each countries experience in the field of postal mechanization. There has been significant development in thc field of Telecommunications system which has brought the three countries still closer to each other.
The Postal Administrations of the member countries tradi-tionally issue and simultaneously release commemorative postage stamps on July 21 every year to mark RCD’s Anniversary.