They also said when improved transport connectivity will be in place, Chittagong Port will become a commercial hub for the region, as the Bay of Bengal will become more accessible to the BCIM member countries for transporting their exports through the port.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) is organising the two-day meeting of BCIM Forum focusing on further strengthening the regional economic cooperation especially in three major areas -- trade, transport and tourism.

CPD Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan said Bangladesh is a transit point between two major economies of Asia -- China and India, which will become the first and third largest economies in the world by 2020.

"By the middle of 2020, the horizon of economic growth and development will stretch from North America and the West to the Asian region," he said adding that China and India will be the driving force of the transformation of the Asian region, which is now emerging as the growth centre for the economic universe.

So the success of the BCIM Forum is very important for the future of Bangladesh as the country is standing at the crossroads of that transformation, he observed.

"Relationships among the BCIM countries have enormous significance for our regional economic development," he added.

Inaugurating the meet, Finance and Planning Adviser Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said it is critically important for the success of a global or regional arrangement that differences on some issues are kept aside in order to promote regional cooperation where there are clear possibilities of gain for all participating countries.

It is also important to reach a consensus on areas which promise gains for all countries participating in the arrangement, he said.

He also suggested avoiding myopic views regarding distribution of gains from regional cooperation among the participating countries. "Many of us think that if a country is in a better position through participation in a regional cooperation, then other countries should not participate in that cooperation. But, in my judgment there is no intellectual foundation for that view. We must move away from this sort of a myopic view regarding distribution of the gains from a regional cooperation," he said.

The adviser also said there should be closer interactions among governments, civil society organisations, research organisations, and the academics both within a particular country and among the cooperating countries.

CPD Executive Director Debapriya Bhattacharya also emphasised on transport connectivity among the BCIM member countries and said if it is not possible to develop the transport network, all efforts to strengthen regional economic cooperation will fail.

He also said although China and India are two major sources of import for Bangladesh, there is a huge trade gap between the two countries and Bangladesh.

"To reduce the trade gap we need to increase our export to those countries through developing our Chittagong Port," he said.

Che Zhimin, deputy secretary general of Yunnan Provincial Government of China, Ambassador Eric Gonsalves, a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service, and Maung Myint, deputy foreign minister of Myanmar, also spoke on the occasion.

The two-day meeting will incorporate five technical sessions on strengthening trade cooperation, promoting transport cooperation, maximising cooperation in tourism, organisational and institutional issues, and BCIM car rally 2007.