A two-day regional seminar on infrastructure aimed at fostering cooperation among countries in South Asia will begin in Dhaka tomorrow, organisers said yesterday.
Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), the country's energy watchdog, will organise the event styled "Energy Security and Regional Cooperation: Role of Regulators" at Hotel Sonargaon in association with the World Bank and the South Asia Forum for Infrastructure Regulation (SAFIR).
The 19th meeting of the steering committee of SAFIR will also be held at the same venue simultaneously, BERC Chairman Syed Yusuf Hossain told reporters in his office in Dhaka.
He said about 40 experts from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Myanmar and host Bangladesh will take part at the seminar.
Hossain said every country in the region either faced or now face problems in infrastructure. "At the meeting, the experts will discuss how they have tackled and still tackling the difficulties in solving energy crisis and fixing wobbly infrastructure."
"We will not replicate their experience in toto, but we can learn from their experiences and utilise them in our context," he said.
BERC Member Salim Mahmud said South Asia has a huge potential for cross border energy trade. "Within SAARC, we have been talking about energy cooperation for long, but the regulators were not part of it."
He said Bhutan and India sell electricity to Nepal. "So, we have cross border energy cooperation in place. We need a legal framework to expand the cooperation."
Four technical sessions on energy efficiency and conservation, cross border energy trade, promotion of renewable energy, and future challenges and regulatory practices will be held on the sidelines of the event, said another BERC Member Emdadul Haque.
SAFIR was established in 1999 with the support of the World Bank. It aims to provide high quality capacity building and training on infrastructure regulation and related topics in South Asia, and to stimulate research on the subject by building a network of regional and international institutions and individuals that are active in the field.
It also aims to facilitate effective and efficient regulation of utility and infrastructure industries, initiate beneficial exchange of knowledge and expertise, and set the trend of rapid implementation of the global best practices.