Colombo: India on December 20 offered funds and technical support to strengthen a five-nation regional grouping of countries around the Bay of Bengal, so that it could exploit its full economic potential.

Supporting the idea of establishing a permanent secretariat for Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka & Thailand – economic co-operation (BIMST-EC), a forum for economic co-operation on trade and technology among the five countries, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie told its fifth ministerial meeting in Colombo that the grouping should be "energised" soon.

"The region's potential has not been fully exploited in the last five years (of BIMST-EC's existence), despite the natural affinity among them," Shourie said.

He said India had assured the forum, which needed technical support facility and funds for the proposed secretariat, that it favoured setting up of a working group of envoys of these countries in Thailand. "We assured them that India will provide whatever type of office equipment and participate in creating a fund for that purpose."

Shourie said India emphasized on specific projects being worked out for technical co- operation in the region, especially in the fields of transportation, communication and tourism.

On the issue of upgrading BIMST-EC into a forum at the level of heads of government, he said this could be achieved by early 2004 if enough work was done by then.

It was necessary to first work out the details of the free trade area for the region, and Trade Ministers of these countries would meet in March 2003 to assess the movement towards an agreement on a free trade area, Shourie added.

The regional trading arrangement could not be the same in respect of all countries, and there should be "differential clauses for each member nation, as BIMST-EC's aim was to achieve trade and technical collaboration in the region based on each nation's economic strengths and capabilities."

Such an arrangement would be marked by "asymmetry" in free trade access, with the timeframe and terms varying for each nation, Shourie said.

A major area of close co-operation among BIMST-EC nations was in formulating responses to issues that arose in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It would have a team of officials in Geneva to co-ordinate their functioning in the WTO, he said.

BIMST-EC would also seek recognition from the United Nations as a sub-regional grouping.

A major project already underway was a highway linking India's North-East with centres in Myanmar and Thailand. Another envisaged developing the deep-sea port of Dawei in Myanmar to provide shorter link to Thailand by cutting through an isthmus and avoiding the Malacca Straits.

Religious tourism was a potential area for close co-operation, Shourie said, citing the fact that Thailand received 11 million tourists a year, many of them pilgrims to centres of Buddhist interest.

After the plenary session, the countries discussed bilateral issues, with India and Sri Lanka taking up aspects of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) II. They already have an FTA that is now under review. "We want to move rapidly into the specifics," he said.

PTI