Intra-regional trade of all seven member countries of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) crossed the $80 billion level in the past year.
Statistics derived from the Trade Map of the International Trade Centre (ITC), a Geneva-based multilateral agency, showed that BIMSTEC intra-regional trade stood at $83.90 billion in 2017 which was $ 72 billion in 2016.
Thus, BIMSTEC intra-regional trade jumped by 16.50 per cent in the past year after a decline by 3.40 per cent was witnessed in 2016.
ITC data also showed that the intra-BIMSTEC trade as a ratio of the regional organisation’s combined global trade stood at 6.14 per cent in the past year, which was 6.12 per cent in 2016.
The BIMSTEC members’ combined export to the rest of the world stood at $599 billion in the past year while the intra-regional export reached $40.74 billion.
At the same time, BIMSTEC’s import from the rest of the world reached $768 billion in the past year against the intra-regional import of $43.16 billion.