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Press
Statement by H.E. Thaksin Shinawatra Prime Minister of Thailand
At the First BIMSTEC Summit 31 July 2004, Bangkok, July 31,
2004, 2:46 pm
Ladies
and Gentlemen of the Press,
I
am pleased to present to you some highlights of the First BIMSTEC
Summit held this morning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Leaders' Retreat was most fruitful and constructive. The
discussion was interactive and spontaneous, which was an excellent
sign for our future cooperation. Several Leaders offered to
host meetings and lead work in a broad range of areas, demonstrating
their determination to make BIMSTEC a forum for concrete cooperation.
BIMSTEC
Leaders agreed that our grouping would from now on be known
as the "Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical
and Economic Cooperation," or BIMSTEC for short.
We
adopted a Summit Declaration, which has been made available.
In the Declaration, we urged further progress in ongoing areas
of cooperation, including timely completion of the FTA negotiations,
development of transportation infrastructure, interconnection
of energy grids, enhancement of tourism and business travel,
and people-to-people exchanges.
In
our Retreat, we paid special attention to poverty reduction
and counter-terrorism.
We
had a long and most fruitful discussion on poverty reduction.
Each one of my colleagues shared his or her practical experience
in their respective country. They underscored the importance
of empowerment, including through education and self-employment,
rural development, access to credit, and making poor people
bankable. We recognized the need to improve health care and
the involvement of the private sector. We agreed that these
experiences will be taken up at the Ministerial Meeting on Poverty
Eradication to be hosted by Bangladesh.
We
noted the importance of setting up a network to coordinate our
efforts and that it would be useful for our Leaders to talk
on the telephone to discuss any matter. The Meeting welcomed
India's proposal to host a BIMSTEC Working Group meeting on
Terrorism, which would involve senior officials with decision-making
power. The Working Group would coordinate work in such areas
as intelligence and capacity building.
We
emphasized the importance of protecting biodiversity and traditional
knowledge, in particular traditional medicine. We agreed to
set up a network of national centers of excellence to discuss
ways to promote traditional medicine and generic drugs, so that
the poor would have access to affordable treatment. The Meeting
welcomed Thailand's offer to serve as lead country on this area
of cooperation.
The
Meeting welcomed Bhutan's offer to host a Ministerial Meeting
on culture.
We
discussed practical ways to promote BIMSTEC as a single tourism
destination. One of the ways would be to have our experts sit
down together and draw up a BIMSTEC tourism map. In this connection,
India offered to host a Roundtable and Workshop of tourism ministers
and industry representatives, so that they can work out concrete
ideas to highlight the BIMSTEC area's historical and cultural
attractions. We welcome India's proposal to host a Ministerial
Conference on Energy Cooperation in 2005.
Thailand
offered to extend a credit line on account trade for BIMSTEC
members to buy agricultural products from Thailand. The size
of the credit line would depend on each country's need.
We agreed to task our Foreign Ministers with the responsibility
of coordinating overall BIMSTEC cooperation.
The
Meeting warmly welcomed India's offer to host the next Summit
in 2006.
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