DHAKA: Bangladesh will host the upcoming 2-day meeting of Bangladesh China India Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor from November 12 to finalize its next work plan.

A foreign ministry higher official confirmed the matter to banglanews.

The event will be held at Chittagong port city, the official added.

The ministry sources said Bangladesh Institute of International Strategies and Studies (BIISS) and Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), India’s Center for Policy Research (CPR), China’s Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS) and Myanmar’s commerce ministry are jointly carrying out the studies to find out the possible fields of cooperation.

Outlines of the joint studies would be categorized in three parts with 12 chapters. The findings will focus on different aspects including social and human development, poverty alleviation, sustainable development, communications, institutional systems, investments and financing, goods and services, and energy of the four countries.

The work plan will be fixed at the November meeting considering the importance of the aspects, found in the studies.

The meeting was scheduled to be held in June. As India expressed unwillingness to attend for their national election, the date had been deferred.

On December 17, 2013, the issue of the formulation a work plan was discussed at a meeting of Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation (BCIM) in the Chinese province of Kunming.

Experts said, private research organizations along with World Bank and Asian Development Bank have shown their interests in developing relations on mutual cooperation.

It was said in a concept paper of BICM Forum that some 2.8 billion people live in this region which is half of the world’s total population.

In 1999, the formal talk to form the BCIM Forum was held at a non-government conference in the Chinese province of Kunming.

Since then the initiative is called ‘Kunming Imitative’.

BDST: 1246 HRS, SEP 04, 2014