The Third Edition of Indian Ocean Conference was held in Hanoi, Capital city of Vietnam on 27-28 August 2018.

Background:

• The First Conference was held in 2016 – Singapore.
• The Second Conference was held in 2017 – Sri Lanka
• It was initiated by Delhi based think tank India foundation along with countries like Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
• The Conference is supported by Ministry of External affairs and many countries are participating in it.

Significance of Indian Ocean:

• There has been estimated that the volume of trade in Indian Ocean is going to out weight Atlantic in the next few decade.
• It forms the link between three major continents which are dominated by developing countries whose trade volume and GDP is going to increase.
• As China is trying to Thwart the USA presence in Indian Ocean by building many ports (String of pearls) it will compromise our sovereignty
• There have been 48 Countries in the Indian Ocean and it is import to safeguard their maritime security.