19th BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting

Tags: International News

Minister of State for External Affairs and Education, Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh participated in the 19th BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting hosted by Chair Thailand virtually from Bangkok on 9 March.

An overview of the news

• During the meeting, a number of documents including the Core BIMSTEC Working Mechanism, Regional BIMSTEC and Rules of Procedure for BIMSTEC External Relations were approved for submission to the 6th BIMSTEC Summit.

• The meeting also approved a draft agreement on the establishment of the BIMSTEC Center for Weather and Climate in India.

• Apart from this, BIMSTEC Bangkok Vision 2030 was also approved. This will be brought up at the 6th BIMSTEC Summit.

• The leaders also approved the Administrative and Disciplinary Rules of the Secretariat and the Revised Financial Rules and Regulations of the BIMSTEC Secretariat, which will enable expenditure by the Secretariat throughout the financial year with an approved budget.

About BIMSTEC

• BIMSTEC whose full form is 'Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation' is an international organization of seven South Asian and South East Asian countries.

• It was established in 1997 to advance mutual trade, connectivity and cultural, technological and economic development in the region.

• Out of its 7 member countries, 5 members – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka are from South Asia and two countries – Myanmar and Thailand are from South-East Asia.

• Initially, BIMSTEC included six areas - trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism and fisheries - for regional cooperation, which was later expanded to 14 areas, including agriculture.

• Secretariat: Dhaka, Bangladesh