From the tales of Lord Rama to the wisdom of Lord Buddha, the South Asian and Southeast Asian regions are not only historically intertwined, but also founded on a shared cultural heritage. Perhaps this shared history alone was enough to convince four nations under the Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation (Bist-Ec) arrangement to come together to pen the Bangkok Declaration on June 6, 1997, to promote economic development, social progress and regional cooperation. But in reality, the Bimstec framework (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic …