BIMSTEC for ‘Sonar Bangla’

The BIMSTEC will help Bangladesh in fulfilling its crucial development goals, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the third summit of the regional group on Tuesday.

“I reiterate our government’s total commitment to the BIMSTEC. It has the potential to move us all to our common goals. I see optimism in its vibrant role, to particularly help Bangladesh in fulfilling its “Vision 2021” of a middle income country,” the Prime Minister said in her address.

She said this was a step to our journey to becoming “Sonar Bangla” or “Golden Bangladesh”.

“I am confident that the BIMSTEC Permanent Secretariat would generate the momentum necessary for the implementation of all our decisions and the agreed agenda,” Hasina said.

She expressed her happiness at Dhaka being chosen for its permanent secretariat.

“I assure you that it (BIMSTEC) would receive all support from us for its operation and activities. We are also waiting to welcome the first Secretary-General in Dhaka,” Hasina said.

The Prime Minister stressed on “purposeful connectivity” to ensure free movement of people, goods, and services, that she said was crucial for “quicker development of member states, overall well being of their peoples, and closer regional integration”.

Hasina said Bangladesh’s aspirations are reflected in the recommendations contained in the ‘BIMSTEC Transport Infrastructure and Logistic Study’.

“The recommendations now need prioritising with agreed timetable for their early implementation. The study should also suggest innovative and practical modalities for faster implementation of the identified actions. The experience of other regions in this respect could be utilised.”

The Prime Minister said its connectivity strategy should support the BIMSTEC “Poverty Plan of Action” to speed up the process of poverty alleviation in our region.

“This action plan contains some useful measures for drawing up regional initiatives. The BIMSTEC Poverty Alleviation Center in Dhaka could play a useful role in this as it is privy to the knowledge and experience of Bangladesh.”

Hasina recounted Bangladesh’s success in bringing down poverty level from 40 percent to 26 percent in the last five years and hoped poverty will be completely eradicated by 2021.

Apart from connectivity and poverty alleviation, Hasina in her speech stressed on the need for free trade within the BIMSTEC region.

“A big contribution of meaningful connectivity would be the increase in trade among the BIMSTEC members. The “Framework Agreement on BIMSTEC FTA” signed a decade ago would help further increase the trade.”

She said the Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) of BIMSTEC needs to adopt the four inter-related agreements as a package under the Framework Agreement and complete all its work by 2014.

“It would assist the next Trade and Economic Affairs Ministers’ Meeting in Dhaka with commitment and flexibility to wrap up the TNC’s work and move ahead on issues of non-tariff barriers and the flow of investment and finance, as part of wider economic cooperation,” she said in her address.

Hasina said the BIMSTEC “would need to adopt sustainable energy development programmes as well as developing regional energy grids and energy markets.”

“Our huge untapped energy potentials, particularly the hydro-power on bilateral or trilateral basis, would need to be developed for optimal utilisation through collaborative projects,” she said.

Hasina drew on the recent experience of cross border power sharing between Bangladesh and India as a model of cooperation in the future.

The Prime Minister also retiterated Bangladesh’s position on adverse climate change that may impact the whole BIMSTEC region.

“A rise in 1 degree Celsius due to global warming would submerge a fifth of Bangladesh forcing 30 million people to become “climate migrants … other BIMSTEC members may also face similar situation,” she said , stressing the need for strategies to handle ‘climate refugees’.

The Prime Minister also stressed on developing a regime of sharing river water resources in the region, taking forward the bilateral cooperation already in evidence among some BIMSTEC member nations.

The Prime Minister said that the BIMSTEC should (a) develop intra-regional food support mechanism to help countries overcome short term difficulties (b) explore ways for increased investments in the farm sector and towards development and transfer of appropriate, climate resilient technology to increase agriculture productivity in our countries (c) facilitate innovative initiatives in priority areas of farm mechanization, innovative agriculture services, water productivity and farming.

She said the permanent BIMSTEC secretariat in Dhaka would help take forward the objectives of the regional grouping in a robust way.