Seventeenth Session of the BIMSTEC Senior Officials’ Meeting held in Nepal
DHAKA, Febr. 7 (NsNewsWire) –Foreign Secretary Md. Shahidul Haque led the six-member Bangladesh delegation to the Seventeenth Session of the BIMSTEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) held on Tuesday in Kathmandu, Nepal after about three years.
As the current Chair of BIMSTEC, Shankar Das Bairagi, Foreign Secretary of Nepal chaired this Foreign Secretary Level Meeting. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand are the Members of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), said a Foreign Ministry press release.
The Seventeenth Session of the BIMSTEC (SOM) discussed on various issues including the administrative and budgetary issues of the BIMSTEC Secretariat and the future Directions of BIMSTEC.
The Meeting deliberated extensively on the outcome of the BIMSTEC Leader’s Retreat held in Goa, India on 16 October 2016 and the Agenda of Action, agreed by the Leaders of BIMSTEC during informal consultations at the Retreat held on the sideline of BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit.
Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh emphasized on revitalizing the activities of BIMSTEC and to have strong collaboration and meaningful cooperation among the Member States, especially on the four areas of cooperation, i.e, Climate Change, Technology, Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime and Trade and Investment.
He also urged the Member States to conclude the BIMSTEC Free Trade Area (FTA) negotiations as early as possible. During the meeting, Bangladesh offered to host a workshop on Agenda 2030 to explore the interface between the Agenda 2030 and the BIMSTEC fourteen priority areas of cooperation in the Second Half of 2017, International Conference on Blue Economy in July 2017, 21st Meeting of the BIMSTEC Trade Negotiation Committee in March 2017, workshop on Climate Change in 2017, Second Ministerial Meeting of the BIMSTEC Ministers of Culture in 2017, and BIMSTEC Tourism Ministers’ Roundtable in 2017.
Other Member States also offered to host various relevant sectoral meetings. Sri Lanka offered to host Meetings on Technology Transfer and Poverty Alleviation, while India offered to host International Conference on Countering Radicalization, first meeting of the National Security Chiefs, first Meetingof BIMSTEC Task Force on Traditional Medicine, Joint Exercise on Disaster Management and first Meeting of Network of Tour Operators.
Nepal will host the Third Energy Ministers’ Meeting in March 2017 and BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting in June 2017.
The 17th SOM was preceded by the seventh meeting of the BIMSTEC Joint Working Group on the Establishment of the Permanent Secretariat of BIMSTEC and the Second Preparatory Meeting to the Seventeenth Session of the BIMSTEC Senior Officials’ Meeting, the release added.