India hosts BIMSTEC meet on maritime security cooperation

• The National Security Council Secretariat hosted the fourth meeting of the  BIMSTEC Expert Group on Maritime Security Cooperation on November 24 & 25.

• Representatives from all BIMSTEC member nations comprising law enforcement agencies, policy makers and senior government officials participated in the meeting.

• This event marked the successful completion of another round of result-oriented discussions on the identified deliverables under focus areas in the field of maritime security. 

• The deliberations were focused on adoption of guidelines on various maritime security related issues, including HADR aspects. 

• The BIMSTEC Member States further deliberated upon the action plan to foster better linkages between the law enforcement agencies, feasibility of conducting maritime exercises in the near future, enhancing information sharing and collective response mechanisms against maritime threats, capacity enhancement and capability building through cooperative and collaborative measures.

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.

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