The Centre seeks to ensure that industries, especially those located near the Bay of Bengal, become a part of the regional value chains that are in operation in the east and south-east Asia, a Ministry of External Affairs official said on Saturday.

Such an integration is the best way to leverage the advantage of the North-eastern part of the country and foster rapid industrialisation, he said.

“You are aware that economic integration with dynamic economies of ASEAN and East Asia region is the key pillar of the government’s Act East Policy,” Joint Secretary, BIMSTEC & SAARC, Ministry of External Affairs, Rudrendra Tandon, said at an ICC organised virtual event.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an organisation comprising seven countries lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal constituting a contiguous regional unity.

The seven BIMSTEC members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

“With production technologies rapidly unbundling themselves, Indian companies cannot become world-class enterprises unless they are part of or at the centre of regional value chains,” Tandon said “Eventually, the factories will have to be based partly in India, and their subsidiaries and partners spread out in low-cost jurisdictions in contiguous neighbourhood BIMSTEC countries. All this will not be possible unless goods and services can move rapidly across national boundaries,” he said.

Market access, trade facilitation and investment protection are the three most critical pillars of modern-day trade agreements, the official pointed out.