BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, November 7: India will assume the chairmanship of the 18-nation Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) for the first time in Bengaluru this week, according to official sources here.
Australia will take over as its Vice President.
The regional body’s 11th council of ministers (COM) meeting, which is the top decision-making body of IOR-ARC and comprises the foreign ministers of the member-countries, is scheduled to meet during its annual conference beginning on November 9 (Wednesday) in the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
The grouping that has largely remained dormant ever since it was founded in 1997. India hopes to infuse some life into it, according to sources.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth (Australia) on October 27, India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna had said: "We have to work closely together to realise the potential of IOR-ARC and also to transform it into an active and vibrant forum."
However, all that the IOR-ARC has to show for its 14-year-long existence are around 75 studies. The studies were commissioned as part of the attempts to see how countries that are part of IOR-ARC can share in capacity building in areas as diverse as fisheries, culture and trade.
Unfortunately, not a single one of these studies has resulted in a concrete proposal. The IOR-ARC, which covers a wide swathe of geographical locations, has been virtually dormant in the last decade or so. One of the reasons appears to be the lack of interest on the part of countries that are part of this 18-member grouping.
The other members of the IOR-ARC are: Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mozambique, UAE, Yemen, Iran, Mauritius, Oman, Bangladesh, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
One of the primary aims of the IOR-ARC when it was founded was to promote economic cooperation.
Source: The Island, November 08, 2011
