Twenty Years of BIMSTEC: Promoting Regional Cooperation and Integration in the Bay of Bengal Region

The Bay of Bengal is an area growing in economic and strategic importance, derived from its position as the principal maritime connection between the Pacific and Indian Oceans and from the good economic prospects of many Bay of Bengal states. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) regional integration process has made substantial progress in recent years. The Bay of Bengal could become the key economic connection between East and South Asia and a potential zone for Asian economic growth. An overarching priority for the BIMSTEC Member States would, therefore, be to further strengthen the regional integration process. Today, BIMSTEC is celebrating 20 years of its establishment. In these two decades, BIMSTEC has progressed in regional cooperation and integration front, whereas, it, at the same time, has faced several new challenges. This book reviews the past and provides new strategies to help BIMSTEC achieving a new paradigm of integration. It primarily deals with the regional cooperation and integration issues, and assesses policy priorities, effectiveness, implementation imperatives and challenges. Each chapter in this book tries to capture essential features of the crosscutting issues and attempts to draw some policy implications. The subject of this book will be of special interests to policy planners, development organisations, academicians, researchers as well as potential investors.