India on Saturday announced a slew of measures such as a ministerial conference on energy, sharing experience in remote sensing and a tourism Round Table to strengthen cooperation among BIMST-EC countries which are expected to start negotiations for free trade agreement in September this year.
At the opening of the first ever BIMST-EC summit in Bangkok, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed to host a ministerial conference on energy cooperation and set up a BIMST-EC centre on weather and climate in New Delhi which would help in sharing India's expertise in remote sensing for agriculture, environment and disaster management.
BIMST-EC comprises Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. The aim of this grouping is to achieve regional free trade by 2017. Trade among the seven countries is currently just over $7 billion.
To further explore the vast potential that exists for increasing tourism within the region, Singh said India would host a Round Table and workshop of tourism ministers, with the participation of tour operators, hotel representatives and other associated with the tourism industry with the objective of doubling tourism within BIMST-EC region in the next five years.
"We are also happy to announce 150 scholarships for next year under the ITEC (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation) programme for BIMST-EC countries, in addition to 150 scholarships offered by India at the ministerial meeting in Phuket in February this year," he said.
India also offers 30 scholarships in the field of traditional medicine to enable a productive partnership amongst BIMST-EC nations to fight the scourge of diseases like HIV/AIDS, Singh said.
Thailand and China are already cooperating to evolve a herbal cure for HIV/AIDS using the expertise they had in traditional medicine.
The prime minister said the main challenge before the region was to transform the richness of "our human and natural resources into cooperative regional activities promoting development, enhancing prosperity and the well-being of our people, and ensuring our collective security in all its multifarious dimensions.
"We need to translate our inherent strength of geographical continuity into a community of prosperity and goodwill. Interconnectivity -- physical, economic or technological -- is of prime importance in building bridges of understanding," he said.
"We can achieve this long-term vision of shared prosperity and growth through cooperative action based on dialogue and fostering mutual confidence, focussing on aspects that unite us," he added.
The prime minister said considerable progress has already been achieved in terms of a Framework Agreement on Free Trade and valuable expert-level studies under the six listed areas of cooperation.
For instance, he said the trilateral India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway proposal and the proposed optical fibre telecommunication link alongside the highway would have considerable importance in the BIMST-EC context.
Noting the region is richly endowed with energy resources, Singh said, it was imperative that member countries address the need for optimal utilisation to meet the growing demands. India proposes to host Ministerial conference on Energy cooperation next year to provide an impetus to the joint efforts in this area.
The vagaries of climate like floods and droughts in the region were a matter of concern and there was a need to pool scientific resources to benefit from weather forecasting, he said.
Meanwhile, a Thai official spokesman briefing on the summit, said the BIMST-EC free trade area proposal would relax tariffs and give less developed member nations a grace period during which they could protect their most vital industries.
Thailand will chair the trade negotiation committee, he added.
