UNB: The Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) has nominated Bangladesh as the Vice Chairman of IORA for the period of 2019-21 and eventually as the Chairman
for the period of 2021-23.
Head of Bangladesh delegation and Secretary (Maritime Affairs Unit) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rear Admiral Md Khurshed Alam flagged the proposal of Bangladesh to become the Vice Chair of IORA for 2019-21.
The issue came up for discussion during the eighth bi-annual meeting of Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) of IORA held on July 30-31in Durban, South Africa.
All the member States of IORA unanimously supported Bangladesh’s proposal. This year’s CSO meeting was hosted by the government of South Africa, the Chair of IORA.
The meeting was attended by delegations from its 21 Member States which included current Vice Chair UAE, Australia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius, Thailand and Singapore among others.
The meeting was also attended by 7 Dialogue Partners of the Association.
During the two-day long meeting, Bangladesh informed that the pilot project funded by IORA on “Exploration of economically important marine flora from the Bay of Bengal” has just been completed and the other IORA funded pilot project on “Introduction of Oyster Culture in Bangladesh” is being implemented by the Department of Fisheries of the Bangladesh. Khurshed Alam also informed the meeting about Bangladesh government’s decision to support the strengthening of the IORA Secretariat by providing the financial contribution of US$ 5750.
Bangladesh also informed that Bangladesh would host the third ‘IORA Blue Economy Ministerial Conference’ in Dhaka on the first week of September 2019 which is going to be the first ever IORA ministerial-level conference to be organized by Bangladesh.