Dhaka looks forward to the establishment of a South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) in 2006, a framework for which will be finalised at the Islamabad summit, being held after a gap of two years.

Khaleda will address the inaugural session of the three-day summit.

Apart from the other major issues to come up at the summit, Bangladesh will focus on issues like trade, investment, information and communication technology, environment and harnessing common natural resources.

Foreign ministry sources said, Khaleda will also meet other Saarc leaders on the sidelines of the summit to discuss bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest.

Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan is already in Islamabad to attend the two-day Saarc foreign ministers' meeting that began yesterday.

Khan and his counterparts from the six other Saarc countries -- India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan -- were scheduled to discuss a text on the additional protocol on terrorism. After the September 2001 terrorist attack in US, a common strategy to combat terrorism in South Asian countries is being mooted under the additional protocol.

The foreign ministers' meeting is also focusing on preventing and combating trafficking of women and children, promotion of child welfare and voluntary funds for disabled persons.

On the proposed single currency, Bangladeshi officials said there was almost no possibility of discussions on the issue at the summit.

The Indian prime minister recently floated the idea of a single currency for South Asia.

At a meeting on Thursday, the Bangladesh foreign minister urged his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri to agree on tariff cut for the LDCs under Safta, UNB said.

Morshed Khan hoped the Islamabad summit would be a turning point in regional cooperation, particularly in trade and other fields of economy.

Kasuri underscored that this summit is very important because of the uncertainty about relations between India and Pakistan in the coming years.

Bangladesh will host the 13th Saarc Summit, the Saarc standing committee decided on Thursday. But the announcement on it will be made on conclusion of the 12th summit.

Dhaka hosted the first Saarc Summit in 1985.

The 12th summit was supposed to be held in Islamabad last year, but the tension between India and Pakistan delayed it.