BCIM kicks off at Kunming today
Bangladesh is likely to emphasise regional connectivity in the first two-day meeting of the joint working group of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor, which begins at Kunming on Wednesday, so that academic discussions can be transformed into reality. Sources in the Economic Relations Division (ERD) said Bangladesh is extremely interested in the BCIM and the four-nation meet will discuss road and rail connectivity with the neighbouring countries so as to build an economic corridor to spur growth in region.
Earlier, Bangladesh discussed the modalities of the economic corridor issue with a Chinese delegation in Dhaka. Bangladesh has already given its inputs on the memorandum of understanding provided by the Chinese and will continue to engage on it, the sources said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have held meetings with Indian officials and would also take up the issue with Myanmar, the sources added.
Hence, the Kunming meeting is going to be very significant for the next initiatives, the ERD official explained.
The prime ministers of China and India have jointly declared already that both of them are interested in constructing the corridor for converting the academic discussions, which have been going on for long, into a regional cooperation strategy.
The initiative was earlier an academic discussion under Track- II diplomacy, but has now been converted into Track- I, which means that government officials are currently engaged in discussions.
The objective of the BCIM is to ensure greater connectivity for greater economic integration in the region as the corridor would stretch from Kolkata to Kunming through Bangladesh and Myanmar, ERD officials said.
The ERD sources also said the BCIM has already agreed on the need to improve the cooperation mechanism, which would feature a multi-track initiative with track I coordination, to promote regional prosperity and harmony.
Business communities of the four countries have agreed in principle to set up a BCIM council for holding regular meetings and to exchange information among enterprises. The BCIM Forum will fully support the proposed business council.
Earlier, the BMIC statement noted that the four parties have to get each government to adopt measures to facilitate the cross-border flow of people and goods, eliminate overland trade barriers in accordance with each country’s domestic laws and regulations, provide market access to each other and increase trade and mutual investments as well as other forms of trade, including trade in services, which are consistent with the regional free trade agreement.
-With The Independent input
