Sushma Swaraj to attend BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's meet in Nepal

India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will visit Nepal next week to participate in the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Foreign Minister's meet, scheduled to be held Kathmandu on 10 and 11 of August.

"Sushma Swaraj will be visiting Nepal to attend the BIMSTECH summit.She will depart in morning of 10 August and will return to New Delhi in the evening of 11 August. In addition to this she would be holding bilateral meetings with other leaders," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said during his final media briefing on Friday.

"The meeting of the BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's on August 10-11 would discuss progress on the implementation of the agenda of action agreed at the leaders' retreat and on all other agreed areas of cooperation in the run-up to the 4th BIMSTEC Summit to be hosted by Bimstec chair, Nepal, later this year," he added.

Highlighting that the BIMSTEC is observing its 20th anniversary this year, Baglay said that it has seen a renewed momentum since the leaders' retreat hosted by India in Goa in October last year.

The meeting of the BIMSTEC foreign ministers is likely to finalise the date for the fourth summit and to assess and review progress made by the grouping.

It will also chart the future course of the organisation whose secretariat is in the Bangladesh capital.

BIMSTEC is an international organisation involving a group of countries in South Asia and South East Asia. These are: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

The main objective of BIMSTEC is technological and economic co-operation among south Asian and south east Asian countries along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.