Foreign secretaries from the Bimstec member countries will discuss and finalise future working modalities of the regional bloc to make it a vibrant organisation.
“The secretaries are expected to have the meeting in Kathmandu [of Nepal] in May to set up the working guidelines of the organisation,” said a senior official of the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry.
They will finalise a set of proposals regarding holding summits, ministerial and senior official -level meetings, he said.
In the last 18 years, Bimstec had only three summits and now everybody realises that the frequency needs to be increased.
“There are two proposals. Some members support biennial summit and some triennial. The SOM will decide on the issue,” the official said.
The members want to have annual ministerial meetings and the foreign secretary level meeting is expected to give a stamp on the proposal, he said. “About senior official-level meeting, they want to hold two SOMs every year.”
About quorum, the official said the members are of the view that in all policy-level meetings, full participation is needed.
BIMSTEC power exchange deal
The final draft text of the trans-power exchange memorandum of understanding will be submitted before the foreign secretaries for consideration.
“The secretaries will put forward their recommendations for the consideration of energy minister-level meeting to be held in July in Nepal,” the official said.
The Bimstec members have finalised the text of the MoU at the fifth meeting of the Bimstec taskforce on trans-power exchange held in Dhaka this month. In the meeting, all the member countries were requested to complete their internal consultation and by July, so that it could be signed in the ministers’ meeting.The MoU needs the approval of the cabinet.
It would be the second such initiative in the region, after Saarc signed an energy agreement in November to trade electricity among themselves.
Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka are the members of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec).
