Pathfinder, Carnegie India and VIF host regional conference on Bay of Bengal development

The Pathfinder Foundation, in collaboration with Carnegie India and Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) India, is hosting a regional conference to deliberate on collaborative development of the Bay of Bengal in a secure environment.

The conference, scheduled to be held in Colombo today, is the second of a series of Trincomalee Consultations. The Japanese Embassy in Colombo is sponsoring this key event. The outcome of this conference will be submitted to policy makers and stakeholders in the participating countries. The Indian Ocean region is home to nearly one-third of world’s population and the Bay of Bengal occupies a significant part of the Indian Ocean surrounded by Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Several other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore are located in the periphery of the bay.

The Indian Ocean is of high economic and strategic significance due to maritime traffic that passes through it.

It is estimated that nearly half of the world’s container shipping, one third of bulk cargo traffic and two thirds of oil shipments pass through the Indian Ocean.

State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene will be the chief guest of the Trincomalee Consultations and the Keynote address will be delivered by Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy.

Government of India National Advisory Security Board Member Vice Admiral Anil Chopra and Japan Foreign Affairs Ministry Southeast and Southwest Asian Affairs Deputy Director General Fumio Shimizu will also represent the conference with officials, scholars and subject matter experts from Bangladesh, India, Japan, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, BIMSTEC, and Sri Lanka.