BIMSTEC meet on June 1: Six priority sectors to be discussed
The New Nation, Bangladesh
BIMSTEC meet on June 1: Six priority sectors to be discussed
By BSS, Dhaka
May 29, 2005
The Ninth BIMSTEC Senior Officials Meeting, a forum of the Foreign Secretaries begins here June 1 to review progress in and make recommendations on agreed areas of cooperation under six priority sectors.
The sectors are: trade and investment, technology, tourism, transport and communication, energy, and fisheries. The meeting will also discuss follow up of the decisions of the First BIMSTEC Summit, foreign office sources said.
Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan will inaugurate the meeting at 10 am at Hotel Sheraton Grand Ball Room on June 1.
Bangladesh will assume the chairmanship of the regional economic grouping as Thailand concludes its term. BIMSTEC Chairmanship rotates in alphabetical order. Foreign Secretary Hemayetuddin will take over as the Chairman of the Senior Office in meeting.
The meeting will be preceded by a working dinner in the evening of May 31 where some of the issues before the SOM would be discussed in an informal setting.
All the seven member countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka are participating at the meeting. The last BIMSTEC Senior Officials Meeting was held in Bangkok prior to the First BIMSTEC Summit in last July.
A BIMSTEC Free Trade Area agreement was signed in last February. The agreement covers trade in goods, services and investment. Negotiations are progressing well on specific issues. The Agreement would come into force from July 2006.
At their Summit in July last, BIMSTEC leaders had agreed to expand cooperation to a number of new areas — culture, education, public health (including HIV/Aids and other threats to public health such as malaria, tuberculosis, and Polio,) protection of biodiversity and traditional knowledge, rural community development, small and medium-scale enterprise, construction, environment, information and communications technology, biotechnology, weather & climate research, natural disaster mitigation & management.
Some progress has taken place, Bangladesh is planning to host a ministerial meeting on poverty alleviation as per commitment made by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia.
The objective would be to establish necessary programmes, projects and mechanism for cooperation in the area of poverty alleviation through exchange of best practices, and technical assistance etc.
India has taken initiative on a BIMSTEC Center for Weather and Climate in New Delhi, Thailand has offered to serve as the lead country for Protection of Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge. Sri Lanka has offered to host an Expert Group Meeting on Protection of Biodiversity and its Intellectual Property Dimension in 2005.
The meeting will also discuss some of the organizational issues to move the BIMSTEC agenda forward.
