Sri Lanka will host the next Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in early September this year, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa told Secretary General M Shahidul Islam.
The Secretary General of BIMSTEC met President at the Presidential Secretariat today (04), the President’s Media Division said.
Sri Lanka is the Chair of BIMSTEC from 2018 to 2020. Though Sri Lanka has already hosted three Working Committee meetings, this will be the first one under the new Administration.
The Senior Officials’ Meeting were held from March 01-03. Here, BIMSTEC Charter was concluded as well as the long overdue rationalization of sectors.
Earlier, there were 14 such sectors. However, many of the areas such as climate and environment were overlapping and this created various issues. Taking all these into consideration, the number of sectors was reduced to seven. This will strengthen the institutional mechanisms of BIMSTEC, the PMD said.
Under the rationalizing of the sector, Sri Lanka will be the lead country for Science, Technology and Innovation. Bangladesh will lead Trade and Investment, Bhutan on Environment and Climate Change, Myanmar on Agriculture and Food Security, India on Security, Napal on People-to-People Contact and Thailand on Connectivity.
Meanwhile Ambassador Shahidul Islam had also called Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Relations earlier today (04) at the ministry premises.
During the meeting, he commended on the progress made by BIMSTEC Member States at the 3rd Permanent Working Committee and the 20th Session of the Senior Officials’ Meeting held from 1-3 March 2020
Sri Lanka is the Chair of BIMSTEC and is expected to host the 5th Summit in the latter part of 2020.
Sri Lanka will lead the science, technology and innovation sector in the BIMSTEC and a facility for technology transfer is planned to be opened in the future.
This was agreed during the 20th Session of the senior officials’ meeting chaired by Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Aryasinha in Colombo yesterday. A press statement issued today said, Sri Lanka, will also appoint a Director to the BIMSTEC secretariat in June.
Foreign Secretary Aryasinha said Sri Lanka had sought to reinvigorate the 20-year-old organization since it assumed the chair last year.
He saidSri Lanka had focused on the need for institutional building through the finalization of the BIMSTEC charter and the allocation of defined areas of cooperation among the member states.
He added that Sri Lanka scheduled to hand over the chairmanship to Thailand later this year is keen for cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, technology, tourism and connectivity, ahead of the summit, scheduled later this year.
BIMSTEC Secretary General Shahidul Islam emphasized the importance of sectoral meetings for more comprehensive cooperation and called for the support of all member states on this front, as well as in negotiation on BIMSTEC free trade area.
