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About BIMSTEC: Details, Objectives, Members, Structure, History
About Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation 'BIMSTEC': Details, Objectives, Members, Structure, History
The Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an international organisation of seven nations of South Asia and South East Asia.
BIMSTEC was founded on 6th June 1997 (21 years ago). At present BIMSTEC Permanent Secretariat is at Dhaka.
The grouping accounts for 22 percent of the global population and has a combined GDP of USD 2.8 trillion.
The member countries of the Summit include Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan, and Nepal. All these seven countries lie near the Bay of Bengal.
Initially, the BIMSTEC bloc included just four member states and was called BIST-EC (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation).
Myanmar was included later and the group was renamed BIMST-EC. The name was changed to BIMSTEC with the admission of Nepal and Bhutan at the 6th Ministerial meeting in Thailand in February 2004.
The first BIMSTEC summit was held in Thailand in 1997; the second was held in 2008 in India, and the third was held in 2014 in Myanmar.
Nepal is the current Chair of the BIMSTEC. Nepal assumed the chairmanship in 2014.
BIMSTEC key objectives include technological and economic cooperation among South Asian and Southeast Asian countries along the coast of the bay of Bengal. Commerce, Investment, Technology, Tourism, Human Resource Development, Agriculture, Fisheries, Transport and Communication, Textiles, Leather etc.
