Bay Of Bengal Initiative For Multi-Sectoral Technical And Economic Cooperation:
BIMSTEC will now be open to new members and observers after a historic first charter of the grouping came into force recently.
- BIMSTEC is a multilateral regional organization comprising seven member states lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal, constituting a contiguous regional unity.
- Aim is Accelerating shared growth and cooperation between littoral and adjacent countries in the Bay of Bengal region.
- It was founded as BIST-EC in June 1997, with the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration, with Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand as members.
- It became BIMST-EC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation) with the entry of Myanmar in late 1997, and eventually, it was named in its current form when Nepal and Bhutan became members in 2004.
- Current Member States: Five deriving from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and two from Southeast Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand.
- Permanent Secretariat: Dhaka, Bangladesh
- It is a sector-driven cooperative organisation in which, initially, six sectors had been included:
- Trade, Technology, Energy, Transport, Tourism, and Fisheries
- As of now, BIMSTEC has 14 priority areas of cooperation. Climate change was added as the 14th priority area of cooperation in 2008.
- Among these priority areas, a member country chooses which of the 14 priority areas it is willing to take the lead.
- India is lead country for Transport & Communication, Tourism, Environment & Disaster Management, Counter-Terrorism & Transnational Crime.
