BANGLADESH-INDIA-MYANMAR-SRI LANKA-THAILAND ECONOMIC COOPERATION

The recent establishment of BIMST-EC was an important development signifying inter-subregional cooperation between countries which are either members of ASEAN or SAARC.

Initially, Bangladesh-India-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation (BIST-EC) was established with the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration at the Ministerial Meeting held in Bangkok in June 1997. Recently, Myanmar became a member and the name was changed to BIMST-EC. The main objective of this new subregional grouping is to foster socio-economic progress in the member countries by promoting cooperation in eight priority sectors, namely, trade, investment and industry, technology, infrastructure and transportation, tourism, energy, agriculture, and human resource development.

A Working Group, composed of a senior official of the Thai Foreign Ministry and the Ambassadors of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka to Thailand , has been established and meets regularly, with the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand acting as its secretariat.

At the request of the member Governments, ESCAP has been involved in consultations leading to the establishment of BIMST-EC, and thereupon ESCAP prepared a study entitled: "BIST-EC Development Programme: Overview and Sectoral Cooperation", which described the status and prospects for cooperation in the eight priority areas. A separate study was done by ICAO on the feasibility of establishing a joint airline service.

The study was submitted to the Special Senior Officials Meeting and Ministerial Meeting held in Bangkok in December 1997. During these meetings, Myanmar, which had been participating in meetings of the Working Group on BIST-EC since 28 August 1997, was officially admitted as a member.

On the basis of the ESCAP study, the Ministerial Meeting agreed to implement immediately an integrated Cooperative Work Programme composed of the following elements:

  1. establishment of an Economic Forum with the participation of public and private sector representatives to promote economic cooperation, identify, and assist in the implementation of, cooperative projects in the fields of trade, investment and infrastructure, and provide a forum for high-level exchange of views between policy-makers and the business community;

  2. promotion of trade and investment cooperation through the holding of private sector forums in five key sectors, namely, textiles and clothing; drugs and pharmaceuticals; gems and jewellery; horticultural and floricultural products; and information technology products and services, with technical support from ESCAP.

  3. holding of a senior economic officials meeting to promote intraregional cooperation in eliminating non-tariff barriers, market access issues, services, and preferential trading arrangements among Member States.

  4. promotion of cooperation in technology transfer and endogenous capability building.

  5. strengthening of transport and communication linkages among Member States through: identification and promotion of new inter-modal linkages; improving efficiency of international land transport; promotion of multimodal transport practices; study of transport demand and capacity requirements for intraregional commodity flows with a view to drawing up an action plan to remove any constraint to a potential transport network; streamlining and reducing costs of transport system through site studies to identify and propose measures for removing present institutional, operational and infrastructure bottlenecks; and promotion of international transport along inland waterways.

  6. enhancement of intraregional cooperation in the energy sector through an action plan for the development and utilization of natural gas, wind, solar and water/tidal wave energy resources.

  7. establishment of a Working Group on Tourism and the holding of a BIMST-EC Meet on Tourism in 1998 in India to develop an action plan for cooperation in the tourism sector.

  8. promotion of cooperation in fisheries through the conduct of a comprehensive study on marine resources, processing and marketing to be conducted in coordination with FAO.

BIMST-EC members espouse the principle of "open regionalism" and advocate a continuous dialogue with non-member States, other regional groupings and international organizations with similar aims and principles. Observers and guests will be invited to attend appropriate meetings and participate in various BIMST-EC activities. The criteria for such participation will be drawn up in due course.

The Ministerial Meeting stressed the importance of Asian solidarity, enhanced South-South cooperation, and coordination among developing countries in the face of challenges posed by the globalization of international trading and financial systems, and called on the G-7 economies to assume a proportionate role in restoring financial stability in Asia in the interests of the international economic system.

The next Ministerial Meeting of BIMST-EC will be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the second half of 1998.