BANGKOK: The BIMSTEC leaders summit in Bangkok is expected to adopt and declare a couple of important initiatives on Friday which could reinvigorate the grouping that has spluttered along since its inception in 1997.
Indramani Pandey, Indian Foreign Service Officer and the current Secretary General of BIMSTEC, speaking at a pre-summit conference in Bangkok organised by India Foundation, an Indian think tank, said the leaders of seven nations are slated to sign a new Maritime Transport Cooperation pact besides adopting a ‘BIMSTEC Bangkok declaration’ at the end of the sixth summit to serve as guide for the future roadmap of the grouping.
BIMSTEC will also sign an MoU with the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to cooperate on maritime and associated issues. Another agreement with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to act against organised crime and drug trafficking is also likely to be finalised, according to Pandey.
The BIMSTEC Journey So Far
Besides India, four other countries from the Indian subcontinent—Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka—are members of BIMSTEC. Current chair Thailand and Myanmar are the other two nations from the ASEAN region that make up the grouping.
Although established in 1997, BIMSTEC or the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, a grouping of member states lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal, has so far managed to hold only five summit level meetings. Geographically, it is a unique link connecting South Asia with South-East Asia. It brings together 1.7 billion people—22% of the world population with a combined GDP of US $5 trillion.
Since 2016, India has tried to re-energise the grouping as an alternative to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
India hosted BIMSTEC Outreach Summit and Leaders Retreat in Goa in October 2016. There have been 19 BIMSTEC foreign ministerial meetings. The last meeting was held on March 9, 2023 in Bangkok in virtual mode. Add to that, two BIMSTEC foreign ministers’ retreats; the last one took place in July 2024 in New Delhi. An informal meeting of BIMSTEC foreign ministers took place on the sidelines of 79th session of UNGA on September 27, 2024 in New York. Senior officials of BIMSTEC have held 24 meetings, the last one on December 19, 2024 in Bangkok in virtual mode. Eight regular meetings of the BIMSTEC Permanent Working Committee have been held so far; the latest one was on February 25, 2025 in Bangkok in virtual mode. A Permanent Secretariat of the organisation was set up in Dhaka in 2014. Ambassador Pandey is the current and fourth BIMSTEC Secretary General, since January 4, 2024.
BIMSTEC & India
India has also taken the lead in forming a forum of National Security Advisers to discuss deeper security cooperation. Four rounds of these meetings have taken place till now. The last meeting took place in Naypyidaw in July 2024.
At the last summit in Colombo, leaders endorsed reorganisation of priority areas/pillars of cooperation into seven verticals. Each member country leads a priority area.
India is the lead country for the security pillar under which there are three sub-sectors:
- Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC)
- Disaster Management, and
- Energy Security
The remaining priority areas/pillars and their lead countries are:
- Trade, Investment and Development (Bangladesh)
- Environment and Climate Change (Bhutan)
- People-to-People Contacts (Nepal)
- Agriculture and Food Security (Myanmar)
- Science, Technology and Innovation (Sri Lanka)
- Connectivity (Thailand).
India hosts the BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate (BCWC) at Noida to provide weather data for the region, as per a Memorandum of Association signed at the third summit in March 2014. A BIMSTEC Energy Centre is in place in Bengaluru for enhanced cooperation in energy security within BIMSTEC region.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Bangkok this afternoon to take part in the summit and have a bilateral meeting with Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra in the evening. There is so far no word if Modi will accede to a request for a meeting by Mohd. Yunus, Chief Adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh.
Third BIMSTEC Dialogue
Meanwhile, political leaders, former diplomats and scholars from the region attended a day-long conference organised by India Foundation in association with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok on Wednesday. Titled the 3rd BIMSTEC Dialogue: Imperatives and Impediments, the discussions were relevant and contemporary.
There was near unanimity on the need to list out priorities for BIMSTEC countries and bring sharper focus on implementing plans agreed upon at the leaders’ level. Speakers from all seven member nations agreed that BIMSTEC needs full backing of governments to meet its objectives. Nepal’s Foreign Minister Arzoo Rana Deuba, her Bhutan counterpart Donggel and four former ministers from member countries were in attendance. Also present were President of India Foundation Ram Madhav, India’s former Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar and former diplomats with experience in handling BIMSTEC affairs.
