GEOPOLITICAL changes in the Bay of Bengal region have given rise to enormous opportunities for the key littorals – Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. These three countries need to leverage the enormous opportunities that exist for various forms of cooperation, thus creating a new zone for economic and security cooperation. These three countries will also need to develop mechanisms to manage conflict, a critical condition for regional peace and stability.

Historically, the Bay of Bengal (BoB) region has played the crucial role of a connector where trade, commerce and cultures were entwined for centuries. In fact, during the British Raj in India, the entire BoB region was under one rule without geographical borders. This changed as new nations emerged in the post-colonial period. Nation building projects of the littorals forced them to look inward, at the cost of commercial and cultural interactions across the BoB, as political tension and mutual suspicion characterized relationships of the newly created nation states. Myanmar, in the 1960s, adopted an isolationist policy and completely withdrew from the international community. Furthermore, from the late 1980s the domestic political upheavals led to further isolation of the country, as the regional and international community, including India, took a strong stand against the brutal military suppression of pro-democracy supporters.

Globalization and the economic rise of Asia have provided new drivers to reconnect and revive old linkages and ties as the 21st century presents an opportunity to redefine the economic future of the region. In a globalized world, some form of regional integration is required for market access and production beyond national borders to sustain high economic growth rates. This has also been accompanied by increasing rivalry among major powers. China’s continued southward orientation and the renewal of the United States focus on Asia means more intense strategic competition for natural resources, strategic transit routes, port facilities and access to markets in the region. This may adversely impact on efforts to promote a BoB community.

Rapid economic growth and an ever expanding demand for resources, especially energy, has spurred the potential for conflict over many flashpoints in the region. Added to this are many non-traditional threats, such as small arms proliferation, various insurgencies, the rise of extremist forces, human and illicit drug trafficking, ethnic cleansing and genocide, migration, both internal and inter-country, piracy and man-made and natural disasters, are all having a profound impact on this region.

 

In recent years, the Indian subcontinent has seen major domestic political changes. This has opened up new opportunities for New Delhi to play a constructive role in the economic and political developments in the region. Myanmar has witnessed major democratic and economic reforms since the country’s transition from military to civilian rule in 2011. To reap the benefit of both regional and sub-regional cooperation and to harness the potential of geographical location, all the neighbouring states need to work together to develop and expand their road, rail, air and waterway links connecting each other. Cooperation in the energy sector, including grid connectivity and trans-boundary oil and gas pipelines, should be developed which would help in promoting trade and investment, alleviate poverty and enhance people-to-people contacts.

In Bangladesh’s case, since coming to office in 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has given special importance to strengthening ties with its neighbours, especially India. Bilateral relations between the two countries have witnessed a steady improvement especially in the spheres of security and economic cooperation. In turn, India’s economic interaction with both Bangladesh and Myanmar has grown significantly in recent years. Bangladesh has replaced Sri Lanka as India’s largest trading partner in South Asia.

A major strength of the littoral states in the Bay of Bengal stems from the fact that all the states are endowed with rich natural resources including oil and gas reserves and marine products. But the level of cooperation for the joint development of natural resources is quite insignificant. Furthermore, the level of resource sharing, particularly water and energy, between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar has been beset with problems owing to political difficulties and a legacy of suspicion and mistrust. During the period 2001-2006, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar missed an excellent opportunity to develop a trilateral gas pipeline. However, in recent years there are signs that cross-border sharing of resources has been gaining ground. Bangladesh and India have established inter-grid connectivity for export of electricity to Bangladesh.

 

To make the BoB community viable, governments should initiate effective and sustainable projects on ocean governance but also undertake a number of other important economic measures including establishing multimodal transport networks, special economic zones, industrial parks, export processing zones, business hubs and development of various other economic activities. Perhaps, the major objective of this initiative should be focused on establishing regional connectivity and economic cooperation all the way from China’s landlocked province of Yunan to India’s North Eastern region and extending to Bangladesh and West Bengal.

However, in order to achieve this, a robust infrastructure for connectivity is required. The benefit of the BoB community will depend on seamless connectivity – road, rail, air and maritime – among Bangladesh, India and Myanmar and beyond to China and the ASEAN countries. This will require investment in the transport sector as well as upgradation of road and railway infrastructure. Multilateral institutions, along with the public and the private sector, can play an important role in improving connectivity, which is the key to trade expansion and promoting investment.

Apart from trade and investment, human security also needs to be taken into consideration. Food security remains one of the primary concerns for states in the Bay of Bengal region. Increasing salinity, risks of climate change, and natural disasters often affects the food security chain within the region. The community may take collective initiatives, in line with the work of SAARC and BIMSTEC, to develop a sustainable food supply chain throughout the region. In fact, an integrated approach should be facilitated to share knowledge on water and river management to ensure environmental sustainability in the Bay of Bengal region. This sub-region is uniquely placed to work together on international rivers that will result in much greater cooperation as well as economic integration among states.

 

The Bay of Bengal community can foster multi-sectoral partnerships to support climate change resilience and preparedness to mitigate the risks of natural disasters including the rise of sea levels in the bay. Resilience and preparedness programmes can enable the states to cooperate on the basis of their available resources and expertise. This will, in turn, reduce the barriers to accessing, contributing, and using data to strengthen climate resilience and overcome climate related risks.

People living in the coastal areas of the BoB community depend on the ocean for their livelihood. Each of these countries have to protect their vast territorial waters, consequently maritime security for each of the littoral states is a matter of the highest priority. Maritime cooperation in the bay could also include support for sustainable fisheries and aquacultural development, unreported and unregulated fishing, participation in regional fora on maritime security with a focus on combating piracy, and working to preserve the bay’s rich marine biodiversity.

The Bay of Bengal community should also give special attention to developing an effective institutional arrangement to deal with ocean governance and related issues, such as climate change. It can be a catalyst to facilitate developments in relation to legal reforms, strengthening the development of the small-scale fisheries sector. The littoral states should also try and reach an agreement to reduce over-exploitation of the fishery resources in the coastal areas, and to develop the ecosystem approach to fisheries.

 

During the past few years, the term ‘blue economy’ or ‘blue growth’ has surged into common policy usage, all over the world. The ocean economy (also referred to as the blue economy) is a relatively new concept that has its origins in the green economy concept endorsed at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. It shares the same desired outcome: the improvement of human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

A blue economy essentially means the use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development. It refers to any economic activity in the maritime sector, whether sustainable or not. At the same time there is also talk of a sustainable blue economy which ensures that the economic development of the ocean contributes to true prosperity, today and long into the future. Bangladesh has decided to give the highest priority to the development of the blue economy. But Bangladesh also realizes that the key to the development of the blue economy will require effective and sustainable cooperation on the one hand, with its two immediate neighbours, India and Myanmar, and on the other, with China, Japan, the US and Australia.

 

Even though bilateral security cooperation has increased over the years, new forms of collaborative efforts on security issues can be explored among the three countries. India can initiate trilateral naval security cooperation with Bangladesh and Myanmar similar to the trilateral maritime security cooperation between India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. India already conducts joint military exercises with both Bangladesh and Myanmar, which may be expanded into trilateral exercises to address transnational security threats with joint patrol and surveillance in the BoB.

The region’s rich natural resources can be optimally utilized through collaboration among the three countries. The settlement of maritime boundary disputes in the BoB between Bangladesh and India and between Bangladesh and Myanmar, has created an opportunity for the three countries to initiate the joint development of natural resources particularly in the areas of oil and gas exploration and in the energy sector. The three countries need to revisit the trilateral gas pipeline. Also, starting a coastal shipping service between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar connecting the major ports in the BoB could be a key initiative in facilitating trade and investment.

Now that Bangladesh has resolved its maritime boundary disputes with India and Myanmar, its economic zone measures approximately 118813 sq km. The challenge for Bangladesh is to protect this large area while at the same time developing a capacity to exploit the natural and mineral resources of the seabed. Mining the deep seabed, maintaining sampled organisms as well as culturing them, requires sophisticated and expensive technology. Bangladesh at present lacks the expertise and resources required to take full advantage of the opportunities that exist. Another challenge before Bangladesh is to ensure the safety of people like fishermen who are functioning in the Bay of Bengal. At the same time Bangladesh needs to protect its marine environment and take measures to ensure that there is no overexploitation of living and non-living resources in the Bay of Bengal.

 

With expansion of the maritime boundary, the opportunities for the nation’s fishing industry have greatly improved as fishing can now be carried out in the deep sea. As a coastal state it can explore and exploit living and non-living resources of water in its exclusive economic zone. At the same time it also has an opportunity to exploit its continental shelf. Bangladesh can obtain relief from the pressures of its high population by utilizing its marine resources properly. For this, the country needs to take proper policy planning measure to ensure optimum results.

Bangladesh has given its full support to China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Two key features of BRI are the Maritime Silk Route and the BCIM economic corridor. Bangladesh has also extended its full support to Japan’s initiative for cooperation in the Bay of Bengal under the ‘Big B’ initiative.

Bangladesh is giving the highest priority to developing a deep sea port at Matarbarhi as well as at Payra. In moving forward Bangladesh will need to address multiple challenges in order to make the most of the full potential of the Bay of Bengal. Moreover, if there is to be any progress towards a Bay of Bengal community, a peaceful and speedy solution has to be found for the repatriation of the one million Rohingya refugees, presently in Bangladesh, back to Myanmar.