India To Join Thai Plan For New Economic Grouping

India has decided to join Bistec (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Cooperation), a new regional economic grouping, according to officials in the ministry of external affairs.

This new regional grouping, a quadrangular initiative taken by Thailand, is scheduled to have two meetings in June in Bangkok. The first meeting will be attended by senior government officials followed by a ministerial meeting.

Secretary in the external affairs ministry A N Ram is expected to represent India in the ministerial meeting which is scheduled for June 6, in case a minister of state for external affairs is not appointed by then.

 

Sources said there was a possibility that Myanmar may be included in the grouping. The external affairs ministry will be the nodal ministry for this group. A delegation from external affairs will be leaving for this meeting.

India is now a member of at least three economic groupings, the other two being SAARC and the Indian Ocean Rim. While Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are part of the SAARC grouping, all the three countries, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, are members of the Indian Ocean Rim.

The Rim includes Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Djibouti, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE and Yemen. The SAARC also includes Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives, other than Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

Commerce ministry sources said that the new initiative will lead to greater economic cooperation between these countries and will eventually lead to tariff and other trade concessions.

However, sources pointed out that India will have to see that joining the new grouping does not hamper its present bilateral or

multilateral commitments.

In fact, the World Trade Organisation has been increasingly concerned with the proliferation of regional economic groupings and at times the multiplicity of members in different groupings. At present, a WTO working group is looking into this issue.