Sri Lanka will host the next Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in early September this year, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa told Secretary General M Shahidul Islam. The Secretary General Islam met President at the Presidential Secretariat today (04).

Sri Lanka is the Chair of BIMSTEC from 2018 to 2020. Though Sri Lanka has already hosted three Working Committee meetings, this will be the first one under the new Administration. The Senior Officials’ Meeting that were held from March 01-03. Here, BIMSTEC Charter was concluded as well as the long overdue rationalization of sectors.

Earlier, there were 14 such sectors. However, many of the areas such as climate and environment were overlapping and this created various issues. Taking all these into consideration, the number of sectors was reduced to seven. This will strengthen the institutional mechanisms of BIMSTEC.

Under the rationalizing of the sector, Sri Lanka will be the lead country for Science, Technology and Innovation. Bangladesh will lead Trade and Investment, Bhutan on Environment and Climate Change, Myanmar on Agriculture and Food Security, India on Security, Napal on People-to-People Contact and Thailand on Connectivity.