Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: On the 35th day of the Russo-Ukraine war, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the recent developments in Europe have raised questions about the stability of the international order and urged India’s neighbors to strengthen their ties.
Speaking via video conferencing at the Fifth BIMSTEC Summit on Wednesday, he said India will provide USD 1 million to the regional group’s secretariat at Dhaka, Bangladesh, to increase its operational budget.
Sri Lanka is hosting the Fifth BIMSTEC Summit. It is the first in-person meeting being held since the last Summit in Kathmandu in 2018.
Modi said in order to increase mutual trade among the group’s members, it was important to move forward on the BIMSTEC’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) proposal. “With our region facing challenges of health and economic security, the need of the hour is unity and cooperation”, he asserted.
Member countries of the BIMSTEC—Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation—are Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan.
“The time has come to make the Bay of Bengal the bridge of connectivity, prosperity, and security. I call on all BIMSTEC nations to dedicate themselves to working with new enthusiasm to achieve the goals,” Modi said.
“The recent developments in Europe have raised questions about the stability of the international order. In this context, it has become a greater priority to have regional cooperation. Today we are adopting the BIMSTEC Charter to develop an institutional architecture for our group,” he added.
PM Modi affirmed that the results of the landmark summit will write a golden chapter in BIMSTEC’s history.
“We are working on extending and expanding the scope of the BIMSTEC scholarship program offered by the Nalanda International University. We are also signing a treaty on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters,” the PM said.
India has been making concerted efforts to make BIMSTEC a vibrant forum for regional cooperation, as initiatives under the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) were not moving forward for a variety of reasons.
The Summit will adopt the ‘BIMSTEC Charter’, giving it an international identity and layout of the basic institutional architecture through which it will carry out its work.
With 21.7 percent of the world’s population and combined GDP of USD 3.8 trillion, the BIMSTEC has emerged as an influential engine of economic growth.