BCIM Economic Cooperation – Prospects and Challenges

The present study is an attempt to explore the potentials for expanding trade and investment under the ambit of sub-regional cooperation comprising four contiguous countries of Eastern South Asia which includes the two fast growing economies -India and China and the two developing economies of Bangladesh and Myanmar (BCIM). The initiative to explore potential opportunities of cooperation in this sub-region, which came to be known as Kunming Initiative, is essentially a track-II endeavour. The major objective of this initiative is to promote economic cooperation among the countries of this sub-region by making best use of their comparative advantages. The idea is to realise the potential benefits accruing from the abundant natural, human and other resources, based on mutual complementarities, through deeper integration of the constituent economies of the BCIM sub-region.