Indian Ocean bloc has key role to play: Australia
November 14th, 2011 - 10:38 pm ICT by IANS
Bangalore, Nov 14 (IANS) The Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) has an important role to play in addressing the challenges facing the region, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd said Monday.
“As the region’s most representative group, the Indian Ocean bloc has the potential to play an important role in addressing the increasing challenges faced by the 18-member countries in the region,” Rudd said on arrival here ahead of its council of ministers’ meeting here Tuesday.
With one-third of the world’s population (seven billion) living in the member countries, Rudd said the region was of vital strategic importance to Australia as it represented 10 percent of the global GDP (gross domestic product) and rising rapidly.
“Australia is as much an Indian Ocean nation as we are a Pacific Ocean nation. Our trade in goods to member-countries in 2010-2011 was over (Australian) $80 billion, accounting for over 17 percent of our total exports,” Rudd said in a statement.
The 14-year-old association has been active in expanding cooperation in areas such trade facilitation, disaster management, cooperation on climate change, sustainable fisheries management and maritime safety and security.
At the day-long meeting, Australia will assume the role of vice-chair of the association and work closely with India, which will take over as chairman from Yemen for the next two years.
Australia will take over as chair from 2013 to 2015, followed by Indonesia.
The other member countries are Bangladesh, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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Tags: climate change, council of ministers, disaster management, fisheries management, foreign affairs minister, global gdp, gross domestic product, indian ocean rim, indian ocean rim association, kevin rudd, maritime safety, member countries, region australia, regional cooperation, representative group, safety and security, sustainable fisheries, trade facilitation, united arab emirates, vice chair