Amid growing Chinese dominance in the Bay of Bengal, India appears to be reasserting itself by hosting over 350 officials from 20 Indian Ocean countries to a conference on the Blue Economy.
Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque is travelling to India to attend the meeting. He is expected to meet Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on the sidelines of the main event.
“I have been invited by the organisers and am scheduled to chair two sessions at the conference,” the foreign secretary told the Dhaka Tribune.
The three-day programme – India and The Indian Ocean: Renewing Maritime Trade and Civilisational Linkages – will be inaugurated by Sushma Swaraj in Bhubaneswar, the captial of Odisha state, on March 20.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is scheduled to address the concluding session.
India’s national security adviser will likely preside over a closed-door meeting of “at least a dozen ambassadors,” The Hindu, a prominent Indian English-language newspaper, reported.
The event’s hosts are Delhi-based Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), Kolkata-based Institute of Social and Cultural Studies (ISCS) and a South African international relations organisation.
The ISCS secretary, Arindam Mukherjee, said China’s $20 billion dollar maritime silk route project had caused India to become concerned, The Hindu reported.
India, Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Thailand, Mauritius, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Madagascar, Singapore, Yemen, Oman, Iran and Cambodia will participate in the deliberations.
At a conference on the Blue Economy hosted by Bangladesh last year, Dhaka proposed the formation of a regional bloc of coastal and littoral states to sustainably use marine resources.
The Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia are the region’s coastal and littoral states.
Bangladesh and India have already bilaterally agreed to develop the Blue Economy in the region.