Why Modi invited BIMSTEC leaders to his swearing-in ceremony

India invited the leaders of the BIMSTEC countries, members of a Bay of Bengal grouping focused on multi-sectoral technical and economic cooperation, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on Thursday. The invitation reflects India’s renewed attention to the Bay of Bengal region and its growing footprint there.

What BIMSTEC is

The grouping brings together Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Founded in 1997, it was largely dormant until the Modi government gave it fresh momentum after cross-border terrorism from Pakistan stalled SAARC, the regional grouping of South Asia.

The region was once closely linked by trade, but from the 1950s its countries chose different political systems and alliances, and it ended up split between SAARC and ASEAN. Trade within BIMSTEC is now only about 5 percent of members’ total GDP, compared with 29 percent within ASEAN. For India, the grouping offers a way to link South Asia with Southeast Asia, central to its Look East policy, and to offer an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

India’s connectivity projects

• Northeast: Rs 10,000 crore for a 1,000-km rail network meant eventually to reach neighbouring countries, and another Rs 10,000 crore for power generation.
• East coast: the East Coast Economic Corridor from Kolkata to Kanyakumari, built with Asian Development Bank help, plus four ports under Sagarmala, at Sagar Island, Paradip Outer Harbour and two sites in Tamil Nadu.
• Roads: the 3,200-km India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway running from Moreh in Manipur through Myanmar to Thailand’s Mae Sot, and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transport Project linking Kolkata and Sittwe in Myanmar to Mizoram by sea, river and road.
• Cross-border rules: a Motor Vehicles Agreement already signed with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, with talks under way on a BIMSTEC-wide version allowing travel on a single online permit.
• Sea and air: a Chittagong-Kolkata-Colombo corridor, Japanese-backed work on Trincomalee and Dawei ports, a proposed Mekong-India Industrial Corridor, and plans for direct flights linking Dhaka, Chennai and Colombo. India’s waterways authority is working on 106 rivers, coordinating with Myanmar and Bangladesh.
• Digital and energy: optical fibre from Bhutan to Bangladesh via the northeast, a $1 billion credit line for fibre networks in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia, gas and diesel pipelines for Bangladesh, and an oil storage farm, LNG terminal and 500-megawatt power plant in Sri Lanka.

Background

Modi was sworn in for a second term on 30 May 2019 after the BJP won 303 of 543 Lok Sabha seats.

See also: election news.

Originally published on 30 May 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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