At Dhaka, Bangladesh
The Seventh Meeting of the BIMSTEC Expert Group on Agricultural Cooperation (7th EGMAC) was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 24-25 April 2019 at the invitation of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Delegations from all BIMSTEC Member States attended the Meeting. The Meeting was inaugurated by His Excellency Mr. Md. Nasiruzzaman, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture of Bangladesh. Ambassador M. Shahidul Islam, Secretary General of BIMSTEC, delivered the Special Remarks at the opening session.
The Meeting reiterated the importance of sharing agricultural information and best practices among BIMSTEC Member States and decided to provide with available information related to Agricultural cooperation to be uploaded on the BIMSTEC Secretariat’s website.
The Meeting reviewed the progress made in Agricultural cooperation in relation to the implementation of the nine identified common projects and decided that the number of common projects for implementation in BIMSTEC Agricultural Cooperation will be reduced to seven (7). The Meeting acknowledged a lack of dedicated funds to implement the common projects and encouraged BIMSTEC Member States to consider contributing to a corpus fund that would be created for funding common identified projects and for deepening agricultural cooperation.
The delegation of Myanmar, the Lead Country for Agriculture Sector, informed the meeting of the arrangements made on the hosting of the First BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture, preceded by the First BIMSTEC Senior Officials Meeting on Agriculture to be held on 11-12 July 2019 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. The Meeting also discussed ways and means to deepen cooperation in Agriculture sector among the Member States. The Eighth Meeting of the BIMSTEC Expert Group on Agricultural Cooperation will be hosted in India in early 2020.
*******************
