Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 5th BIMSTEC Summit on 30 March. The Summit, which is being held in virtual mode, will be hosted by Sri Lanka, the current BIMSTEC chair.
To prepare for the Summit, meetings of BIMSTEC senior officials will take place on 28 March followed by meetings of the BIMSTEC foreign ministers the next day.
The Covid pandemic related challenges, and the uncertainties within the international system that all BIMSTEC members are facing, imparts greater urgency to the goal of taking BIMSTEC technical and economic cooperation to the next level. This is expected to be the main subject of deliberations by leaders at the summit.
The leaders are also expected to discuss the establishment of basic institutional structures and mechanisms of the group.