The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) celebrates its 20th anniversary in June. BIMSTEC needs to engage in maritime security cooperation to meet the challenges of a changing strategic landscape.

BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, celebrates its 20th anniversary in June this year. It is well-positioned to engage in maritime security cooperation to face the challenges of a changing strategic and economic landscape.

Although BIMSTEC was initially established to tackle sub-regional economic and social development issues, its potential for sub-regional security cooperation has come to the fore in the past decade. While BIMSTEC started with six economic-related priority areas in 1998, security issues were included since the 8th Ministerial Meeting in 2005, including counter-terrorism, transnational crime, and disaster management.

… Rajni Gamage is a Senior Analyst in the Maritime Security Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.