The 12th ministerial meeting of the seven-country
Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)
ended in Myanmar's new capital of Nay Pyi Taw Friday evening with the signing of the convention on cooperation in combating international terrorism, transnational crime and illicit drug trafficking.
The endorsement marked an important and vital milestone in BIMSTEC's efforts on
counter-terrorism, analysts said.
With Myanmar taking over the chairmanship from India, the 2009 BIMSTEC ministerial meeting was attended by foreign ministers from all the BIMSTEC countries -- Bangladesh,Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand sharing the Bay of Bengal.
The meeting touched on the sectors of trade and investment, energy and poverty alleviation among others.
The areas of cooperation among BIMSTEC extended to 14 this year from 13 at the last
summit in 2008 as Bangladesh proposed to take the responsibility as lead country in the area of climate change.
Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein reiterated in his inaugural address Myanmar's
commitment to BIMSTEC, saying that the country will forge ahead with its efforts to promote cooperation among the BIMSTEC members.
Thein Sein expressed Myanmar's belief that economic strength BIMSTEC will play an ever more important role in the international community, warning that the emerging global issues of climate change, financial and economic crisis, and food and energy crisis threaten to undermine progress so far gained including the achievements to date of the millennium development goals.
He called for addressing and overcoming these challenges which are disparate and varied,
maintaining that no country can tackle these challenges alone.
He cited six major challenges that the world is facing as entering into the 21st century,
which are global warming, world financial and economic crisis, impact of world energy crisis,
world food crisis, increasing of the population of poor people in the world and terrorism caused by racial, religious and ideological conflicts.
He welcomes India's declaration to establish the BIMSTEC policy think tank network,saying that establishment of the BIMSTEC cultural industries commissions and cultural industries observatory is an important step towards promoting world
knowledge of the BIMSTEC region's cultural heritage.
He particularly stressed that efforts at developing alternate form of energy such as solar,
wind and biofuel for domestic consumption and for use by industry must remain paramount,calling the set-up of BIMSTEC energy center soon as timely and saying that the establishment will have the development of new and other renewable sources of energy as a core area of cooperation.
"Myanmar, as lead country in energy cooperation, would like to seek member countries'
support and cooperation so as to implement the plan of action tasked by the BIMSTEC energy ministers conference," he said.
BIMSTEC has so far identified 14 areas of cooperation since its founding, namely trade
and investment, technology, energy, ransportation and communication, tourism, fisheries,poverty alleviation, agriculture, cultural cooperation, counter-terrorism and transnational crime, environment and disaster management, public health, people-to-people contact and climate change.
India hosted the second BIMSTEC summit in 2008. Formed in 1997, BIMSTEC aims at promoting multi-sectoral cooperation for economic and social progress of the region. It first outlined six areas of cooperation in 1999 and the areas were increased to 13 in 2006 and 14 in 2009.
Myanmar joined the BIMSTEC in August 1997 soon after integration into the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July.
BIMSTEC is a crucial link between the countries of South Asia and Southeast Asia and is
a region with many natural complementarities. It consists of certain ASEAN countries and members of South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), serving as a bridge to link the two regional organizations.
With a combined population of over 1.3 billion people, the BIMSTEC region has abundant natural and human resources that will enable the organization to bring greater prosperity to the region, observers said.