Dhaka for the first time would host the conference of South and South East Asian Cooperation (SEACO) at the end of the next month. Foreign ministers of its member states along with the public and private stakeholders are expected to take part in the conference. At this moment - the member states include Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Maldives.
After two decades of negotiations at the Organisation of Islamic Countries or (OIC), SEACO is crystallising in shape under the enlightened leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as its chief patron, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam, leading a delegation of senior corporate leaders from the country, has already visited Malaysia and Indonesia and had fruitful discussions with relevant counterparts in support of the initiative called SEACO.
Mentionable, SEACO is a sub-regional initiative – with member countries from South and Southeast Asia – within the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) framework, for eventually creating a free trade area where trade, technology, investment, finance and skills are shared and leveraged amongst the member states. It is a private sector and track-II level Forum with an objective of advancing regional economic integration.
The Forum is going to function in the model of World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) exclusively with the agenda of economic cooperation among the member countries and their neighbourhoods. It has a combined consumer market of more than four hundred million and a workforce of close to two hundred million. It is spread across an area of 2.3 million square kilometres.
With a combined GDP (on PPP basis) of $1.5 trillion, the current trade stands at a volume of $770 billion. The average GDP growth rate ranges between 4.6 pc to 6 pc per annum with Bangladesh currently leading at the top with 8.3 pc, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The SEACO initiative is aimed at creating public-private synergies across infrastructure, energy, capital markets, banking, tourism, food security, manufacturing and logistics and various sectors of the blue economy.
One of the core areas under intense focus at the SEACO is education and skills development - so that the human resource potentials of the member states could be magnified and harnessed constructively. This is very much in line with the economic diplomacy focus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Dr AK Abdul Momen as the Foreign Minister and Md Shahriar Alam at the Minister of State.
The need for strengthening regional socio-economic cooperation has never been greater. The creation of the SEACO will hopefully bring about the desired integration among the participating states.
