Published on The Daily Star
The recently held 9th Conference of the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar) Forum, which focused on fostering closer economic cooperation among themselves, should be seen as a major initiative towards sub-regional cooperation in this region.
The event was hosted by the International Regional Cooperation Office, Foreign Affairs Office of Yunnan Province at Kunming, China on January 17-19. BCIM Forum was first initiated in Kunming in 1999 as part of an initiative by the civil society organisations of the four countries.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has served as its focal point in Bangladesh from the very inception of the initiative. Indeed, Professor Rehman Sobhan was one of the driving forces in establishing this Forum in 1999. The objective of this initiative was to explore opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation among four neighbours who remain linked by “the inheritance of history and compulsion of geography” as stated by Professor Rehman Sobhan.
The seven states of North East India and Yunnan Province in South West China had much to gain from this sub-regional cooperation. For Bangladesh, the interest was to access the benefits of BCIM cooperation through better connectivity and higher flows of trade in goods and services.
Emerging economic power houses of the twenty-first century, India and China, provided a window of opportunities for Bangladesh. Myanmar also provided opportunities for Bangladesh by way of joint exploitation of rich natural resources and trade and investment cooperation.
Since 1999, nine conferences were held in the participating four countries by turn — in Kunming, New Delhi, Yangoon/Nay Pyi Taw and Dhaka. They identified a number of potential areas of cooperation among the countries of the region, such as economics and trade, trade facilitation, investment, culture, connectivity and tourism.
Bangladesh’s interest in the Forum lies in the benefit it may reap from cooperation in each of these areas. The 9th Forum was particularly important for Bangladesh in view of the communiqu� that was issued during the visit of Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina to China in March 2010. The joint communiqu� mentioned taking the BCIM process forward and establishing greater connectivity among the countries of the region.
The reflection of this commitment could be seen in the attendance at the 9th Forum of a high-powered five-member official delegation from Bangladesh led by the foreign secretary. The Bangladesh civil society team, which included a Member of Parliament, academics and business leaders, was led by Professor Rehman Sobhan, Chairman, CPD.
Focal organisations from other participating countries were International Regional Cooperation Office of the Yunnan Foreign Affairs Office (in Kunming), Institute of Chinese Studies (in India) and International Organization and Economic Department of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Union of Myanmar.
The Myanmar delegation was led by the deputy minister for foreign affairs, the Chinese delegation was led by the assistant minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Indian delegation was led by former ambassador Eric Gonsalves, Member, Governing Body of the Centre for Policy Research. Each of these four delegations also included other high-level members representing the government, academics and apex bodies of the business organisations.
With participation of government representatives from Bangladesh, China and Myanmar the Forum made a significant headway in terms of elevating the initiative from a predominantly Track-II status (civil society) one to a Track-I (government) one. This is an important departure.
The theme of this year’s Conference was “Multi-track Approach: Programmes for Cooperation.” The discussion at the Conference focused on regional economic (trade) cooperation, regional connectivity infrastructure, exchange in social and cultural fields and institutional arrangement for smooth functioning of the Forum.
This initiative is extremely important for Bangladesh as cooperation with India and China will allow her to access large markets of Southern China, including Yunnan Province, and North East States of India through reducing tariff, addressing non-tariff barriers and promoting trade facilitation.
The presentation on trade from India led to discussion on ways and means to enhance intra-country trade in the sub-region. The discussion also focused on locating and opening of new border trade routes and inclusion of trade in services covering tourism and energy. Participants agreed that trade among these four countries will flourish only when people, goods and vehicles can move across borders with minimum hassle and procedural obstacles. This would require development of a coherent transport system integrating all modes of transport.
Connectivity was perceived to be a critical aspect of BCIM cooperation. The keynote paper on connectivity, presented by Dr. M. Rahmatullah, Visiting Fellow, CPD, mentioned that the basic infrastructure and facilities to establish mutually beneficial inter and intra-regional transport linkages already existed along major possible routes. What was needed was political support.
He noted that follow-up actions would require revisiting of the existing routes, constructing and upgrading missing and weak links and undertaking transport facilitation measures for smooth movement of goods and vehicles across BCIM countries. The paper particularly focused on various possible surface routes that could connect BCIM countries keeping in view the transport cost, physical road condition and distance.
In the 8th BCIM Forum held in Myanmar in 2009, the representatives of the four countries agreed to hold a Car Rally between Kunming to Kolkata (K2K). The 9th meeting proposed to hold a route survey in 2011 and a Rally to take place in end-February 2012. It will hopefully coincide with the holding of the tenth Forum in India, perhaps in Kolkata. Various routes for the Rally were proposed at the Forum; these will be finalised through discussion among relevant authorities.
A preparatory meeting for setting up a BCIM Business Council (BCIM-BC) was also held in Kunming. The main objective of this Business Council will be to build a platform to discuss ways to enhance trade and investment cooperation among these countries. A draft agreement, signed by representatives from the four participating countries, specifies modalities to implement this. All members also agreed to promote intra-regional tourism by jointly planning a number of activities.
Exchange of visits by teachers and students as well as joint academic projects were also proposed to improve cooperation in the area of education. To facilitate greater understanding among relevant stakeholders and to generate and promote knowledge about possibilities of cooperation in various areas, an MOU was also signed to launch a BCIM Newsletter.
As was noted earlier, the BCIM Forum, which began as a Track II initiative, is now gradually moving towards Track-I. At Kunming, all four countries had shown keen interest in taking the initiative forward by undertaking concrete steps. The BCIM initiative has been sustained for more than a decade now. With the commitment demonstrated in Kunming, the four countries are approaching a stage where many of the promising ideas of cooperation, which were articulated when the Forum was set up, have started to take a concrete shape.
However, to expedite this process, governments and the civil societies of the four countries will need to work hand in hand, do the required home work to identify the priority areas and pursue those towards concrete actions and initiatives.
The writer is Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue.