• Union Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Youth Summit in Gandhinagar.

• India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are members of the BIMSTEC organisation.

• The Summit is themed ‘Youth as a bridge for intra-BIMSTEC exchange’. 

• The minister proposed that BIMSTEC countries collaborate to establish a “Youth Bridge” — a multi-sectoral initiative aimed at empowering young leaders through knowledge-sharing, leadership programmes, and regional networking opportunities. This initiative seeks to integrate areas like entrepreneurship, sports, academia, and technology for the empowerment of youth.

Objectives of BIMSTEC Youth Summit:

i) To inspire young leaders from member countries to actively engage in addressing pressing global challenges, economic and social issues, and youth-related development agendas.

ii) To foster a constructive exchange of perspectives on strategic issues that empower youth.

iii) To generate innovative ideas and solutions that contribute to creating a brighter and more sustainable future for the region and beyond.

What is BIMSTEC?

• The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) comprises India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

• It is a regional bloc comprising seven countries lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal constituting a contiguous regional unity.

• This sub-regional organisation came into being on June 6, 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration. It constitutes five countries from South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka) and two from Southeast Asia (Myanmar and Thailand).

• Initially, the economic bloc was formed with four member states with the acronym BIST-EC (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation). Following the inclusion of Myanmar on December 22, 1997 during a special ministerial meeting in Bangkok, the group was renamed BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation).

• With the admission of Nepal and Bhutan at the sixth ministerial meeting in February 2004, the name of the grouping was changed to Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

• The BIMSTEC region is home to about 1.8 billion people, accounting for about 22 per cent of the global population with a combined GDP of $4.5 trillion.

• The BIMSTEC Secretariat is situated in Dhaka.

• India has been pushing for making BIMSTEC a vibrant forum as various regional initiatives under South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) were not moving forward primarily due to non-cooperation from Pakistan.

• For India, BIMSTEC is a natural choice to take forward key foreign policy priorities like ‘Neighbourhood First’ and ‘Act East’ as the bloc enjoys the strength of connecting South and Southeast Asia. 

• Initially, six sectors — trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism and fisheries — were included for sectoral cooperation. It was later expanded to 14 areas of cooperation.

Negotiations for BIMSTEC Free Trade Area

One of the primary objectives of the establishment of BIMSTEC is to promote intra-regional trade and investment in the Bay of Bengal region. BIMSTEC concluded the Framework Agreement on the BIMSTEC Free Trade Area in 2004. The Framework Agreement encouraged establishment of effective trade and investment facilitating measures, including simplification of customs procedures, and development of mutual recognition arrangements, among others. 

The BIMSTEC Free Trade Area initiative has been planned to help eliminate or minimise the tariff barriers that adversely affect intra-regional trade.

The BIMSTEC trade negotiating committee has held many rounds of negotiations toward finalising the agreements and protocols that will form the integral parts of the free trade area, including agreements on trade in goods and services, rules of origin, trade facilitation, and the protocol for amending the framework agreement.

One of the core challenges to creating a regional trade facilitation framework has been the difference in members’ conditions and their capacities to foster trade facilitation.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)