NT NETWORK
PANAJI
India will attempt to isolate Pakistan further during the first BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit being held in Goa from today.
Leaders from 11 countries attending the summit will explore further opportunities for bilateral trade and engagements to farther their economic agendas.
By extending the invitation to hold the Outreach Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured a platform to the developing countries from South Asia to interact with Russia and China.
According to reports, India is counting on the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative on Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) to corner Pakistan in the backdrop of the 19th SAARC summit scheduled in Islamabad, later this year, which was cancelled after India pulled out of the summit following the Uri attack.
A joint meeting of the BRICS and BIMSTEC leaders is slated to be held on Sunday, October 16.
In a statement on Friday, Modi said, “In a first, I am happy that India is facilitating an outreach summit with the BIMSTEC leaders of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sir Lanka and Thailand. Representing nearly two thirds of humanity together, we hope to tap the potential for cooperation and the dividends this will bring. India looks forward to building bridges to new partnerships and finding common resolve and solutions to our entrenched problems.”
While India’s exports as well as imports have risen in the last few years, the share of trade with BIMSTEC still remains much below its potential. Issues like poor connectivity and hurdles in trade facilitation leading to high trade costs and weak supply capabilities, especially in less developed nations like Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh have led to the low trade deals.
In the year 2014-15, India’s exports to BIMSTEC nations rose by 16.6 per cent to US dollars 22.3 billion, while the imports from the same countries rose 8 per cent to US dollars 9.3 billion during the same year.
Apart from trade and commerce, earlier this year in August, the inception meeting of the BIMSTEC Transport Connectivity Working Group (BTCWG) was held in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting finalised the draft terms of reference for BTCWG and proposed the work plan for the working group.
BIMSTEC, the sub-regional group of seven countries in South Asia and South East Asia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand was established on June 6, 1997, with its headquarters in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The group of nations works together with the objectives of technological and economical cooperation among south Asian and south East Asian countries along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. It also covers cooperation in commerce, technology, investment, agriculture, tourism, human resource development, fisheries, transport and communication, textiles and leather amongst others.