India's Trade with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic-Cooperation (BIMSTEC) – A Study
Keywords:
BIMSTEC, Bay of Bengal Initiative, Economic Co-operation, Regional Trade, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri LankaAbstract
The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic-Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a sub-regional economic grouping comprising Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The BIMSTEC Free Trade Framework Agreement sets out a program of ambitious preferential trade liberalization between the member countries. It aimed to establish a unique link between South Asia and South East Asia. The seven BIMSTEC countries are widely different with respect to size, level of development and economic structure. BIMSTEC brings the five members from the SAARC and two members from the ASEAN together. It was formed with the idea of imparting greater economic cooperation among the member nations in the areas of technology, transport and communications, energy, tourism, agriculture, fisheries and human resource management. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the impact of sub-regional grouping on India’s trade performance and to explore the comparative advantage and competitiveness for economic co-operation between India and the other BIMSTEC countries. The research is mainly based on different measures of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) measures in addition to simple Balassa Index. Accordingly alternative RCA indices are calculated. The stability of different measures of RCA are also tested. In the light of the evidence some policy implications are drawn.
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