New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 5th BIMSTEC Summit Wednesday. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is on a three day tour to Sri Lanka, met his Nepali and Bhutanese counterparts on Tuesday on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Ministerial meeting and discussed cooperation in connectivity, energy and hydropower projects.
Know the focus of the summit
The Summit will be held in a virtual mode, and hosted by Sri Lanka, the current BIMSTEC chair.
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BIMSTEC senior officials (SOM) met Monday to prepare for the summit which was followed by meetings of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers (BMM) on Tuesday.
"The Covid pandemic related challenges, and the uncertainties within the international system that all BIMSTEC members are facing, imparts greater urgency to the goal of taking BIMSTEC technical and economic cooperation to the next level. This is expected to be the main subject of deliberations by leaders at the Summit," the ministry of external (MEA) said.
Besides that leaders are also expected to discuss the establishment of basic institutional structures and mechanisms of the group.
Jaishankar, who was part of the "productive and congenial" BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting held in Colombo on Tuesday, emphasised the grouping's commitment to intensify and expand areas of cooperation especially connectivity, energy and maritime ties among the member countries.
The 'Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)' is a regional multilateral organisation. The member countries are located along the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal, constituting a contiguous regional unity.
Countries include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.