Enhancing cooperation among BCIM Forum countries

The concept of the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) Forum originated from an initiative of a number of institutions in the four regional countries in August 1999.These institutions converged to establish a platform with a view to encouraging, promoting and developing regional and sub-regional cooperation among the participating countries. The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Bangladesh, the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS) in Kunming, China, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in India and the Ministry of Border Trade in Myanmar, among others, participated in a conference in Kunming, China (1999) where the BCIM Forum was launched. The prime objective of this initiative is to promote economic cooperation among the participating countries by making optimum utilisation of their comparative advantages and reaping benefits accruing from the enormous natural, human and other resources of the region.
The BCIM forum is playing an active role in terms of enhancing mutual understanding, improving information communication, facilitating people-to-people contacts, building co-operative bridges, reaching development consensus, conducting pragmatic co-operation, as well as promoting common regional prosperity. People-to-people contacts are significant for understanding, friendship, consensus, exchange of personnel and economy and trade.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE CONTACTS: Enhancing people-to-people contacts may play an important role for resolution of outstanding disputes, promotion of peace, stability and co-operation.The BCIM countries share many aspects of cultural, religious and ethnographic heritages. Cultural interaction denotes promotion of mutual understanding, forging of mutual affection among the people of region, and also sustaining political cooperation. There are many propitious conditions for promoting culture and humanities co-operation among BCIM countries. For example, the Confucius Institute, co-founded by the Yunnan University and the North-South University of Bangladesh in 2006, has now enrolled more than 200 students, and has held many cultural exchange activities.
TOURISM CO-OPERATION: Tourism is a 'pilot' area in regional economic cooperation and development. The aim of tourism is to make it play its role more widely and importantly in each country, so that more people within the region can benefit from tourism development. Tourism co-operation and people-to-people interaction are imperative for enhancing mutual understanding and friendship.
Academic cooperation can play an important role in the BCIM region. Academicians, researchers, journalists, doctors and other professionals from BCIM countries periodically meet/perform to share their ideas and work towards realising common agendas (for example, BCIM forum meetings etc.).It is agreed that the ongoing programmes of academic exchanges at the school and university levels need to be augmented. Further cooperation programmes between institutions should be encouraged.
Joint Research has been started in the Joint Study Group Platform. Researchers from the BCIM countries are actively participating in this platform. The First Joint Study Group (JSG) meeting was held in Kunming, China on December 18-19, 2013 and the second meeting of the JSG was held in Chittagong, Bangladesh on December 17-18, 2014. The researchers from BCIM countries' research institutes and universities had active role and participation in both the meetings and various researches were prepared on different topics and issues. Collaboration is needed through the conduct of joint research on issues pertaining to BCIM countries.
INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATION: By strengthening institutional collaboration, people-to-people contacts can be promoted. Institutional collaboration can be performed in areas including information exchange, capacity building, joint research, sharing experiences, lessons, good practices on policy research, advice and advocacy, mobilisation of resources. There are a large number of think-tanks in the BCIM countries which can frequently organise seminars and meetings and discuss policy matters as to how to improve further the existing relations in the region.
The informal sector in a modern society plays an important role by taking over a major share of the responsibility to implement the delivery component or the function of direct contact with people in de-velopmental projects. Civil society organisations (CSO) are assisting the governmental policy formulation and implementation techniques in the areas of economic development, millennium development goals, environmental management, human health, food security and so on. CSOs can greatly promote interaction and co-operation at bilateral and sub-regional levels and the BCIM is an example of how CSOs can enhance people - to - people contacts and also contribute significantly to various types of co-operation.
Kunming has paired with Yangon, Mandalay, Chittagong and Kolkata as sister cities. Moreover, China has established sister ties between three of its big cities and three Indian metros, an initiative to establish people-to-people ties and share best practices in town planning and urban maintenance among other things. Besides boosting connectivity, the sister city connections would also help the city officials learn from each other. The twinning arrangement will help to learn about city plan, drainage, administration, education and other systems, adopt them where necessary. As part of the sister city ties, cultural shows would be held by troupes from each city and as a result, there would be exchange of visits, and study tours.
CO-OPERATION IN SPORTS: Strengthening co-operation among sports-related organisations, jointly promoting international sports and events, introducing to each other the indigenous sports for sports tourism and sports performances in these countries are needed. Sports competitions can be arranged and trainings for coaches /sports personalities and school and university level series can be organised.
Social interaction could play an important role to enhance people-to-people relations. Similarly, resource sharing is a vital issue to promote people-to-people co-operation. It can be in areas of disaster management, health care service, agriculture, micro-credit or rural banking, language centres etc. The BCIM countries can consider establishing a mechanism to enhance information-sharing, promote exchanges among authorities in charge of disaster management and disaster relief, conduct joint exercises between emergency rescue teams, establish networks to quickly confirm safety of nationals, and enhance coordination in providing and receiving assistance.
PHYSICAL CONNECTIVITY: Physical connectivity (roads, highways etc.) is one of the key areas to be invigorated in order to support regional co-operation in trade, investment and other sectors. BCIM countries have taken initiative to identify possible routes for road connectivity among countries. The BCIM Car Rally and Car Rally route survey will further highlight the cause and opportunities of better connectivity. This has proved to be a milestone in promoting the idea of connectivity and people-to-people contact besides opening up new opportunities and avenues for building infrastructures, developing connectivity, promoting tourism and stimulating trade, commerce and investment.    
Kunming has initiated direct flight to Dhaka and Kolkata and now direct flights are connecting Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu with cities in Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. With the promotion of four countries' cooperative mechanism and joint efforts of the BCIM forum, currently there have opened several direct air flights in Kunming which would promote tourism and people-to-people contacts.
SECURITY COOPERATION: Security co-operation can play a role to establish people-to-people contacts. For example, the Bangladesh Army has been equipped with Chinese tanks, its Navy has Chinese frigates and missile boats and the Bangladesh Air Force flies Chinese fighter jets. Therefore, a joint collaboration mechanism among four member-states regarding anti-terrorism will be beneficial for each of the countries to pursue terrorists even in the cross-border areas and it will promote easier people-to-people contacts.
The first China-South Asia Think-Tank Forum (CSATTF) was held in Kunming in June 6-7, 2013. As a part of the Expo, the first CSATTF launched at the same time. The 2nd China-South Asian-Think-Tank Forum was held on June 6-7, 2014 in Kunming, Yunnan. Being a part of the China-South Asia Expo, this Forum is an important platform to carry out dialogue and communication among think- tanks of China and South Asian countries. So China-South Asia Trade Fair is not only promoting economic benefits but also enhancing people-to-people contacts.
Economic co-operation can be in the form of trade, business, investment and financial co-operation. The BCIM economic and trade relation is improving rapidly. The BCIM Business Council was jointly approved by four countries. Regarding investment, foreign direct investment (FDI) of the BCIM countries has increased over time. Thus, economic co-operation would promote people-to-people contacts.
ENERGY CO-OPERATION: Energy is a key driver of economic growth and shortage of energy supply in the region is one of the major constraints to further development of the BCIM. To guarantee regional economic development, energy cooperation among the countries needs to be strengthened. There exist some bilateral agreements among BCIM countries (between Bangladesh and China, Bangladesh and India, India and China, etc.) regarding energy cooperation. Energy co-operation could promote further people-to-people contacts.
There have been a number of high-profile state level visits in the past few years among BCIM countries. The then Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament Abdul Hamid (now President of Bangladesh) visited Yunnan and current Speaker Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury also visited Yunnan twice. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid an official visit to China from June 06 to 11, 2014. In August 2010, Yunnan Governor QIN Guangrong visited Bangladesh and India and then Vice-President Xi Jinping (now President) visited Bangladesh. Yunnan Vice Governor GAO Fengalso visited India and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a two-day visit to Bangladesh and a three-day visit to China. A few memoranda of understanding of co-operation on educational, tourism, agricultural and power sectors between the two sides were signed during these visits. High-level government delegations' visit can promote further people-to-people exchanges and co-operation
RECOMMENDATIONS: In order to further promote the BCIM initiative, suggestions would be as follows:
1. Promoting academic exchanges among research institutions and conducting joint research/study,
2. Improving co-operation on cultural sectors and enhancing mutual learning of language and culture and cultural week,
3. Enhancing exchanges and co-operation among media and strengthen communication among media workers and institutions,
4. Strengthening information exchange and promoting co-operation in sports sectors,
5. Establishing fund for people-to-people contact and cultural and educational exchanges which could provide financial guarantee for co-operation among the BCIM countries and
6. Providing facilities for cross-border travel and transit, simplifying visa formality, and eliminating all barriers to promote tourism and build tourism co-operation institution.
The writer is Research Fellow, the Bangladesh Institute of
Development Studies (BIDS)
[email protected]