New Delhi: India signed the Host Country Agreement for establishing the BIMSTEC Energy Centre in Bengaluru, for enhanced energy cooperation in the Bay of Bengal and littoral region, including through inter-grid connectivity.
The agreement was inked on Saturday between Secretary East Jaideep Mazumder and BIMSTEC Secretary General Indra Mani Pandey.
The MEA spokesperson in a post on X said:
“Secy(East) @JaideepMazumder & BIMSTEC Secy General @IndraManiPR signed Host Country
Agreement for establishing BIMSTEC Energy Centre in Bengaluru, paving the way towards strengthened energy cooperation including inter-grid connectivity in the region.”
The Centre is to be housed in the premises of the Central Power Research Institute in Bengaluru, India, and it will also function as the Secretariat of the BIMSTEC Grid Interconnection Coordination Committee.
This comes nearly a year after India hosted the first meeting of the Governing Board of BIMSTEC Energy Centre (BEC) on February 27, 2023 at Shangri-La Hotel. Bengaluru.
It saw active participation from all BIMSTEC countries viz. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand along with the BIMSTEC Secretariat.
The functions of the Energy Centre will be to:
*Coordinate, facilitate, and strengthen cooperation in the energy sector in the BIMSTEC region by promoting experience sharing and capacity building
*Create, manage and evaluate energy-related data-base, relevant to the region, and take into view various on-going activities, and suggest a road map for meaningful intra-BIMSTEC cooperation
*Prepare and operationalise a framework for networking among the national level institutions in the region
*Prepare the groundwork, such as feasibility studies, data collection etc., for intra-BIMSTEC energy related projects
*Study, compile, and disseminate the prevailing policies of the BIMSTEC member countries in different areas of energy sector
*Enhance cooperation for capacity building and sharing of experiences on best practices, including reforms, regulation and energy efficiency
*Function as the Secretariat for energy cooperation activities
The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven member countries, five from South Asia and two from Southeast Asia– Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand — totaling 1.73 billion people with a combined GDP of USD 5.2 trillion, as per available data from 2023.
In July this year, Foreign Ministers of the seven BIMSTEC nations met in New Delhi in an informal setting, to discuss issues including security, connectivity, trade and investment, and people to people ties, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral.
BIMSTEC, formed on the June 6, 1997, focuses on 14 priority sectors. The organization, akin to SAARC, is negotiating a free trade agreement, and the leadership rotates alphabetically. The permanent secretariat is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
