BIMSTEC Cooperation

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is in Bangkok, Thailand, to participate in the sixth summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), which is due to kick off today (Friday). Ahead of the summit, Nepal and Thailand signed nine different agreements covering eight different areas on Wednesday. These include a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on tourism cooperation between the governments of the two countries, a cultural agreement, and a MoU between the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and the Board of Trade (BoT) of Thailand, MoU between the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), among others.  

Speaking at a joint press conference held after the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his counterpart Paetongtarn Shinawatra, PM Oli expressed his belief that the visit would go a long way in consolidating the cooperation between the two countries in the areas of culture, tourism, education, and energy. Given the fact that every year, tens of thousands of Buddhists from Thailand make their pilgrimage to Nepal's Lumbini, the holiest site in Buddhism, with 21,496 tourists visiting in 2024, there exist ample opportunities to deepen the ties between the two countries on many fronts. 

In the wake of the 2015 earthquake that ravaged many monuments, including those religiously significant, Thailand provided aid worth over 1 million USD to help reconstruct the Boudhanath Stupa and other cultural sites in Nepal, as well as other material and financial support. This is a testament of how much Thais care about Nepal and the Nepali people. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba, delivering a speech, said that the regional organisation should move forward as a people-centric and development-focused dynamic institution that is also capable of addressing the hopes, expectations, and issues of the people like climate change, stressing the necessity of regional unity and cooperation for the transformation of the region. As remarked by Minister Rana, the primary driver of regionalism within BIMSTEC lies in strengthening the economic, cultural, societal, and people-to-people relations of the region. 

The regional cooperation aims to foster economic, social and political collaboration among the nations in the Bay of Bengal region for shared prosperity, peace and stability. However, challenges remain in achieving its full potential and goal. Regional cooperation allows countries to pool resources, expand markets, and enhance their collective capacity to achieve sustainable development. Because they have many things in common, it is relatively easy for them to join hands to address common challenges.

At a time when global trade is under growing threat due to rising protectionism and punitive tariffs and countermeasures in retaliation aimed to reduce or restrict the trade of goods across international borders, and when long-haul transportation of goods is increasingly being disrupted due to geopolitical tensions and attacks on ports and key canals, and also by disrupters like COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of regional trade has never been more important.  The dire shortage of daily necessities in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic that upended shipping across the oceans is a case in point. Given this reality, it would be prudent to focus on trade and cooperation among the nations in a region. All the participating countries should focus on this agenda for mutual benefits and shared prosperity.