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Mahesh

09/04/22 22:43 PM IST

BIMSTEC

  • WHAT
  • WHY
  • WHEN
  • WHERE
  • WHO
  • HOW
What is BIMSTEC? 
  • The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional multilateral organisation.
  • Its members mainly belong to the Bay of Bengal.out of Seven members,five are from South Asia and two are from South East Asia.
  • Bangladesh,Bhutan,India,Nepal,Sri Lanka belong to South Asia and Myanmar ,Thialand to Southeast Asia.
  • AIM- to create an enabling environment for rapid economic development; accelerate social progress; and promote collaboration on matters of common interest in the region.
  • The BIMSTEC region is home to roughly 22 per cent of the global population with a combined GDP of over $2.7 trillion.
  • It not only connects South and Southeast Asia, but also the ecologies of the Great Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal.
Objectives -
  • Provides cooperation to one another for the provision of training and research facilities in educational vocational and technical fields
  • Promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in economic, social, technical and scientific fields of common interest
  • Provides help to increase the socio-economic growth of the member countries.
  • Accelerating support for each other in the fields of education, science, and technology, etc.
Why BIMSTEC is gaining relevance over SAARC? 
    • What BIMSTEC promises is a 'SAARC minus Pakistan', with Myanmar and Thailand thrown in for good measure.
    • Other SAARC members like Afghanistan and the Maldives could join later as members.
    • BIMSTEC, in fact, is a bridge between South Asia and Southeast Asia, and India is the prime mover behind the recent moves on this regional grouping.
    • Its role is crucial to energising this grouping on the basis of sound bilateral relationships with individual members. While Thailand has done the heavy lifting so far, progress would not have been possible without India's leadership.
    • At the BIMSTEC outreach summit in Goa, 14 priority areas were identified, including terrorism, disaster management, climate change, energy, and cooperation in agriculture.
    • The Goa meeting promised to take the grouping forward with India's leadership, especially when regional integration in the neighbourhood is facing serious obstacles.
    • Equally important is the China factor: as China widens its imprint in the region, India feels it must step up in its engagement with its neighbouring countries.
    • Today BIMSTEC has acquired a more solid footing as its economic fundamentals are strong with dynamism in growth. India is among the fastest growing economies in the world with a rate of 7.6 percent.
    • BIMSTEC is likely to grow by 6.9 percent when the world economy is sluggish at a pace of 3.1 percent in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
    • BIMSTEC's gross domestic product (GDP) is $3 trillion or four percent of global GDP in 2016.
    • However, even as India leads the grouping in terms of economic growth, its standard of living expressed in terms of income per head of the population is only $1,719 in 2016 and is much lower than that of several of the other members like Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.
    • Bhutan, further, is also pioneering in quantifying 'gross national happiness'.
    • Bangladesh is also ahead of India in various indicators of socio-economic development, such as women's participation in the labour force. With such positive fundamentals, closer integration of the Bay of Bengal community promises to be beneficial for all.
    • If BIMSTEC is to succeed where SAARC failed, India must draw the right lessons as the trade pact is being finalised.
    • Besides IndiaPakistan tensions, the process of South Asian integration proved to be difficult because the other member countries felt a resentment towards India's dominance.
    • Ensuring greater market access through unilateral trade liberalisation would have made a big difference and SAARC members would then have benefited from India's rise as an economic power. Their resentment has only deepened as this has not happened.
    When did BIMSTEC come into force? 
    • BIMSTEC is an economic bloc that came into being on 6 June 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration.
    • Initially, the economic bloc was formed with four countries with the acronym ‘BIST-EC’ (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation).
    • With the entrance of Myanmar in 1997, the grouping was renamed ‘BIMST-EC’ (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation.
    • Finally, with the entrance of Nepal and Bhutan at the 6th Ministerial Meeting in 2004, the grouping was named Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
    • The grouping holds annual meetings hosted by member states based on alphabetical rotation. Sri Lanka is the host nation this time.
    • It is an international organisation of seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations, housing 1.73 billion people and having a combined gross domestic product of US$ 4.4 trillion (2022).
    • The permanent secretariat is in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
    BIMSTEC Secretariat
    • The fourth BIMSTEC summit at Kathmandu launched measures to strengthen the collective’s secretariat. India has promised $1 million to set up a Secretariat in Dhaka.
    • India has identified several other areas where it will support the collective.
    • Delhi will provide a $3 million grant to the BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate, promote collaboration between industries and start-ups, and launch programmes that will help in the adoption of international standards and norms.
    • Delhi has also suggested a regional value chain based agricultural trade analysis – this will be conducted by the RIS.
    • The Asian Development Bank and the New Delhi-based ICRIER have stewarded awareness programmes on trade facilitating measures in the member countries.
    Where BIMSTEC is playing pivotal role to India? 
    It helps India to carry out three policies- 
    • Neighborhood First - primacy to the country’s immediate periphery;
    • Act East - connect India with Southeast Asia; and
    • Economic development of India’s northeastern states – by linking them to the Bay of Bengal region via Bangladesh and Myanmar.
    • Allows India to counter China’s creeping influence in countries around the Bay of Bengal due to the spread of its Belt and Road Initiative.
    • A new platform for India to engage with its neighbors with South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) becoming dysfunctional because of differences between India and Pakistan.
    Challenges 
    • The focus of BIMSTEC is very wide. It is suggested that BIMSTEC should remain committed to small focus areas and cooperate in them efficiently.
    • BIMSTEC FTA was negotiated in 2004, talks on it are yet to be concluded.
    • BIMSTEC planned to hold summits every two years, ministerial meetings every year, but only four summits have taken place in 20 years upto 2018.
    • India has used BIMSTEC only when it fails to work through SAARC in the regional setting and other major members like Thailand and Myanmar are focused more towards ASEAN than BIMSTEC.
    • The formation of another group Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar(BCIM) will impact BIMSTEC adversely.
    • BIMSTEC secretariat also suffers from inadequate financial and manpower assistance for its operational activities.
    • Another criticism is India’s selective interest in BIMSTEC each time SAARC is hamstrung due to Pakistan.
    • BIMSTEC member countries don’t import goods that are manufactured and exported by other members, instead importing from other non-member countries.
    • BIMSTEC members are yet to build a shared and lucrative coastal shipment ecosystem and also grapple with frequent detention of fishermen who cross territorial borders.
    • The progress of BIMSTEC has also been underscored by Bangladesh-Myanmar relations over the Rohingya refugee crisis, the India-Nepal border issue, and most recently, the political situation in Myanmar after the military junta took over.
    Who announced the adoption of BIMSTEC charter recently? 
    • Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who attended the summit virtually, called for unity and cooperation in the region as it faces economic and health challenges.
    • He also announced the adoption of the organisation's institutional architecture- the BIMSTEC charter.
    • BIMSTEC did not have a formal document or organisational architecture, which was adopted this time in the form of the BIMSTEC Charter.
    • However, it did have a working mechanism for policy making and operational goals.
    • Policy making would be done through two types of meetings: Summits, which are supposed to be held every two years; and ministerial meetings of Foreign and Commerce Ministers of member countries for deciding on trade and economic affairs, to be held once every year.
    • An operational meeting of senior officials to monitor the activities of the grouping is also supposed to be held twice a year.
    • Since its inception, BIMSTEC’s policy making meetings have not been held as per plan. Just five summits, including the current one, have been held in 25 years. 
    • BIMSTEC has a coordinating body called the BIMSTEC Working Group, which has a rotating chairman based on which member country chairs the organisation (the current Chair of BIMSTEC is Sri Lanka).
    • Under this, meetings are to be held monthly at the Dhaka secretariat to review the progress of the regional grouping.
    • The Fifth summit also succeeded in creating mechanisms to deepen cooperation.
    • Amongst the important decisions is the one related to the BIMSTEC Master Plan for Transport Connectivity.
    • The region requires seamless connectivity through multi-modal channels that improve links within and amongst the member countries.
    • These channels should be in sync with the regulatory frameworks of the member countries.
    • The Summit evolved a systemic approach to streamline the evolution of BIMSTEC. Establishing an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) for formulating a vision document for the region will help in articulating the aspirations of the collective.
    How BIMSTEC is significant? 
    • The BIMSTEC region hosts 22% of the world population or 1.68 billion people; and the member states have a combined GDP of US$3.697 trillion/per year.
    • For Bangladesh, BIMSTEC might be a platform to strengthen its much-needed economic development, while Sri Lanka sees the goal of becoming a hub for shipment in the Indo-Pacific region.
    • For smaller members Nepal and Bhutan — the two landlocked, mountainous states — the grouping serves as a pass to the sea.
    • Lastly, for Myanmar and Thailand, it could be seen as a way to reduce over-dependence on China and as an opening to a huge consumer market for its commodities.
    • The idea of BIMSTEC also gained prominence after the 2016 Uri attack when India was able to get SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations on its side to boycott the organisations’ summit, which was to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan.
    • India also made efforts to enhance the pace of BIMSTEC’s progress in recent years.
    • The BIMSTEC Energy Centre was set up in Bengaluru, along with the BIMSTEC Business Council, a forum for business organisations to promote regional trade. It aims to create free-trade and power grid interconnectivity agreements, and a masterplan for transport connectivity in the Bay of Bengal region (adopted at the current summit).
    • And lastly, BIMSTEC is important owing to the land and maritime trade potential of the member countries.

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