On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the 5th BIMSTEC Summit. The BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) is a multinational regional organisation.
The member countries are located along the Bay of Bengal’s littoral and neighbouring territories, forming a contiguous regional union. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand are among the countries involved.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is on a three-day visit to Sri Lanka where he met with his Nepali and Bhutanese counterparts on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Ministerial Conference on Tuesday to discuss cooperation in connectivity, energy, and hydropower projects.
Sri Lanka, the current BIMSTEC chair, is hosting the Summit in a virtual format. On Monday, BIMSTEC senior officials (SOM) met to prepare for the summit, which was followed on Tuesday by meetings of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers (BMM).
According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), “The challenges posed by the Covid epidemic, as well as the uncertainty that all BIMSTEC members face in the international system, make the goal of advancing BIMSTEC technological and economic cooperation even more urgent. This is expected to be the primary focus of leaders’ discussions at the Summit ”
Aside from that, leaders are anticipated to debate the formation of the group’s core institutional structures and methods. Jaishankar, who attended the “productive and congenial” BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting in Colombo on Tuesday, highlighted the grouping’s determination to enhance and expand areas of cooperation among member nations, particularly connectivity, energy, and maritime links.
PM Modi’s address at the BIMSTEC
The Prime Minister gave a virtual address to the seven-nation BIMSTEC meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that regional cooperation, particularly among nations in South and Southeast Asia, had become a priority because the current Russia-Ukraine conflict had ‘raised issues about the international order’.
He told representatives of the seven-nation regional bloc that, ‘the recent developments in Europe have raised questions about the stability of the international order. In this context, it has become a greater priority to have regional cooperation.’
“As our area faces health and economic security problems, unity and cooperation are critical,” he said, adding that India would contribute $1 million to BIMSTEC’s operating budget to strengthen the capacity of the regional alliance.
The prime minister also stressed the significance of settling on an FTA, or free trade agreement, to ‘boost mutual commerce among BIMSTEC members’ in his brief remarks.
“The time has come to make the Bay of Bengal the bridge of connectivity, prosperity and security. I call on all BIMSTEC nations to dedicate themselves to working with new enthusiasm to achieve the goals we achieved together in 1997,” PM Modi said.
Projects under SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Collaboration) were not moving forward for a variety of reasons, India has been making serious efforts to create BIMSTEC a thriving venue for regional cooperation.
The ‘BIMSTEC Charter,’ which will give the grouping a worldwide character and lay out the core organisational infrastructure through which it will carry out its operations, will be adopted at the summit.
Published By : Ankit Singh
Edited By : Khushi Thakur
