All the heads of governments or states under the seven-nation Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation have given assurances of joining the 6th BIMSTEC Summit scheduled for the first week of April, said BIMSTEC secretary general Indra Mani Pandey on Tuesday.
鈥業 have been assured of continued cooperation from political leadership of the member states鈥ll the heads of governments of the BIMSTEC member states have confirmed that they would join the summit scheduled for April 4,鈥� Indra Mani told an interactive session with the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh at his office in Dhaka.
He said that a ministerial meeting comprising the ministers dealing with foreign relations of the member states would be held on April 3.
Responding to a question, Indra Mani, a career diplomat of India, said that the summit would give a platform to engage both bilaterally and regionally as the main agenda of the forum of the South Asian and Southeast Asian countries was to promote regional cooperation to accelerate economic and social cooperation.
Asked whether the Rohingya issue being a regional crisis, would be discussed in the summit, he said that BIMSTEC was focused on addressing development challenges through cooperation of all the member states irrespective of their internal political changes.
About the achievements of BIMSTEC, he said that they had made significant progress since its inception, but not at the pace all member states expected.
He said that the summit was expected to yield a comprehensive declaration and adopt rules of procedure for the organisation that held its 5th summit in Colombo of Sri Lanka in 2022.
Asked about their challenges, he said that the main challenge was to identify ways of cooperation and make the cooperation take place on the ground.
During the forthcoming summit, he mentioned, the member states are expected to decide their priorities for cooperation under its mandate in various areas, including trade and investment, agriculture, environment, security and food security.
Established in 1997, BIMSTEC with its permanent secretariat later established in Dhaka is comprised of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, housing a total population of 1.8 billion in 2023 鈥� 22 per cent of the global population.
