Sri Lanka is a founding member of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Since its inception in 1997, Sri Lanka has been an active member in the multilateral forum.
The country held the chairmanship for the first time from 2002-2003, during which Colombo promoted the political commitment of member states to intensify sub-regional co-operation.
As of 2016, Colombo’s trade with BIMSTEC members accounted for only 17.4 percent out of the total trade in goods. Its imports from BIMSTEC were only 23 percent of its total imports and Sri Lanka’s exports to BIMSTEC members were only seven percent. Moreover, India accounted for more than 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s trade with BIMSTEC. Parallel to BIMSTEC’s slow progress, Sri Lanka’s cooperation with the BIMSTEC members grew at a snail’s space.
Amidst this backdrop, Sri Lanka became the chair of BIMSTEC from 2018 to 2020, following which the country gained the opportunity to ensure speedy cooperation of the member states of the Bay region.
During the Fourth Summit, former President Maithripala Sirisena emphasised that the BIMSTEC countries have shared aspirations for growth, development, commerce, and technology and that Sri Lanka would facilitate this natural platform to implement regional connectivity and economic cooperation.
Since assuming the chairmanship, Sri Lanka facilitated three Permanent Working Committee Meetings and a Senior Officials Meeting. It succeeded in finalising the BIMSTEC Charter after 23 years along with the rationalisation of sectors and Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Cooperation between Diplomatic Academies/Training Institutions of BIMSTEC member states, and deliberating sectoral and institutional matters.
Subsequently, in 2019, BIMSTEC also signed a MoU on establishing a BIMSTEC Grid Interconnection and BIMSTEC Technology Transfer Facility; it was decided that the facility will be established in Sri Lanka, giving Colombo a unique opportunity to discuss and lead innovation and application of technology across various industries including agriculture, business, healthcare, and education.
Even though the world was engulfed in a global pandemic in 2020, the geopolitical attempts in the Indo-Pacific continued. The Bay of Bengal continued to be on the radar as an emerging strategic and economic hub in the greater Indo-Pacific region. Even though there were multiple planned activities for the BIMSTEC countries, they were not realised due to restrictions and challenges posed by the pandemic.
As Sri Lanka was gearing up to host the Fifth BIMSTEC Summit, the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the summit to be postponed. In December 2020, Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal made by the Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena to accept the BIMSTEC convention at the Fifth Summit of the BIMSTEC scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka next year. The upcoming year, therefore, will be an important milestone for Sri Lanka’s chairmanship.
As the BIMSTEC Chairman, Sri Lanka is privileged to set the agenda at the FIFTH BIMSTEC Summit. In other words, Sri Lanka has the unique opportunity to set the priority areas to discuss various cross-cutting issues that are important for its interests. As the summit will be held amidst a global pandemic, there will be a lot to discuss regarding the economy and health, and also share success stories and lessons from the other member countries.
Sri Lanka should streamline its own agenda with that of the BIMSTEC’s in the upcoming summit. Discussing collective economic development will be important. According to experts, 2021 will see growth recovery in South and East Asia as the impact of the pandemic shrugs off and external demands rebound. This will boost intra-regional trade.
Being part of BIMSTEC, Sri Lanka is a partner in BIMSTEC’s share of 21 percent of the global population (1.3 billion people) and seven percent of intra-regional trade. BIMSTEC provides a conduit for economic cooperation with East Asian production networks and value chains. It can become a building block for Sri Lanka’s future economic progress. To realise this objective, Sri Lanka should prioritise finalising the BIMSTEC-FTA (Free Trade Agreement), which was supposed to be in full operation by 2011, but so far, the progress has been exceedingly slow. If it succeeds to do so, the BIMSTEC-FTA could strengthen Colombo’s links to ASEAN and India.
Sri Lanka should also focus on discussing technology and innovation at the upcoming summit. The COVID-19 pandemic created a disruption in the field of technology and increased digitalisation across the globe. However, it also created opportunities for smaller nations to explore low-cost innovative measures to facilitate e-banking, e-commerce, e-marketing, and the creation of digital value chains. These countries also explored new initiatives for online education, and e-channelling for health amongst other digital initiatives. Since Sri Lanka is the Chair as well as the lead in technology and innovation sector, facilitating discussions on experiences of member states and sharing knowledge for future cooperation will be important.
Sri Lanka proposed adopting a troika system comprising current chair, former chair, and future chair in order to work together to ensure that BIMSTEC is on track in its progress. Sri Lanka should use the upcoming summit to move forward with the proposal to ensure that BIMSTEC will maintain its momentum for the years to come.
Sri Lanka, like any other country, faced numerous challenges in its foreign policy front in 2020 due to the prevailing pandemic. Even though the new government set goals to enhance its cooperation in the regional and multilateral fora, the efforts were disrupted due to the restraints and limits placed on international travel and physical interaction. At the dawn of 2021, there is hope that the world will find ways to normalise under new circumstances. Henceforth, there is hope that Sri Lanka will use the BIMSTEC platform effectively. (Observer Research Foundation)
(The writer is a Research Fellow in South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.)
