The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Finance Ministers of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries wrapped up their meeting in Dhaka yesterday pledging their commitment of mutual cooperation for poverty reduction.

Though the meeting ended without any action plan for poverty reduction, it reached a consensus on exploring the possibility of establishing a regional food bank and to consider it at the next Ministerial meeting to be held in Nepal in the second half of next year.

Chaired by Bangladesh Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam, the meeting also decided to consider the possibility of regional cooperation in facing the impact of climate change for sustainable development.

"The two issues will be discussed at the next ministerial meeting after further review," Dr Aziz told a post-ministerial press briefing at Sonargaon Hotel.

Inaugurating the ministerial in the morning, Chief adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed said sharing experiences among the member countries was paramount in tackling poverty.

"Many regions of the world have achieved fruitful results in trade, industry, tourism, monetary cooperation, technology transfer, and ultimately better lives for the people through regional collaborations. It is possible to have a far-reaching impact on poverty reduction and development through regional cooperation," he said.

"The Institutional framework of BIMSTEC member-countries may be devised for intensive and extensive research, investigation and ultimately development of programmes incorporating best practice examples," Dr Fakhruddin noted.

The 7-nation sub-regional group BIMSTEC has been initiated to connect South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Dr Aziz said the meeting agreed on the need for a plan of actions for the member nations for poverty alleviation and decided that Nepal would take the lead to prepare the plan.

In this regard, each of the member countries will organise events like seminars and conferences on any one of the eight MDGs to put forward recommendations on the plan of actions. The countries will also examine and share the best practices of one country in poverty alleviation. The Ministerial meeting also stressed the need for reviewing other issues recommended by the officials' meeting.

These are regional cooperation in training of trainers for vocational education, development of horticulture, expanding ICT to education, health and agriculture sectors to reduce rural poverty, and developing seeds that will help increase agriculture production as well as be resistant to flood and salinity.

Asked to sum up the outcome of the ministerial meeting, Dr Aziz said: "Reach a common wavelength in view of the current global situation, renew commitment to poverty alleviation and recognize the need for regional cooperation in poverty alleviation."

Dr Aziz said global price hikes of essentials coupled with uncertainty of food availability were serious threats to those living below the poverty line.

He said the member countries now understand that the national level initiative would be inadequate to face the current global situation.

"Certain decisions were taken to move forward the causes… to further examine certain decisions," he added.

Replying to a question, the Finance Adviser said Bangladesh still hopes to achieve most of the MDGs by the year 2015.

Bhutan's finance minister Lyonpo Wangdi Norbu, India's state minister for rural development Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Myanmar's deputy minister for national planning and economic development Col Thuyain Zaw, Nepal's national planning commission member Dr Posh Raj Pandey, Sri Lanka's minister for nation building and state infrastructure development Slinda Dissanayake and Thailand's social development and human security minister Chavarat Charnvirat attended the ministerial conference. Bangladesh Foreign affairs adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury also spoke at the opening function.

BIMSTEC, formed in June 1997 in Bangkok, covers 13 priority sectors including counter terrorism and transitional crimes, trade and investment, transport and communications and poverty alleviation.