Bangladesh eyes wider global engagement with focus on greater trade: Shahriar

State minister for foreign affairs M Shahriar Alam on Saturday said that Bangladesh would engage with the world in a bigger way and do everything on the diplomatic fronts to take the country to the next stage of development with more trade and cutting dependency on aid.
‘Bangladesh is ready for business. Bangladesh is attracting investment,’ he said mentioning the country’s engagement with Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, India and other countries on trade and investment fronts with much focus on economic diplomacy.
Shahriar said that Bangladesh, over the last few years, had witnessed visits of trade delegations tagged with each high-level bilateral visit to Bangladesh that showed the country was ready for expanding business.
The Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh arranged the dialogue titled ‘Bangladesh Diplomacy @50: Engaging the World’ at the auditorium of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, marking its 21st anniversary.
BIISS chairperson Munshi Faiz Ahmad and former foreign secretary Md Touhid Hossain spoke at the dialogue which was also attended by foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque with DCAB president Raheed Ejaz in the chair.
Centre for Policy Dialogue senior research fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan presented a paper on ‘Bangladesh’s Priorities in Economic Diplomacy’ at the dialogue conducted by DCAB general secretary Narul Islam Hasib.
The state minister said that every country needed to find its own equilibrium and mentioned that Bangladesh was a significant player in the region.
He laid emphasis on capacity-building, saying Bangladesh would focus on all fronts of diplomatic engagements and every aspect of global affairs as it was moving towards becoming a developed country by 2041.
‘The foreign ministry will further expedite its efforts,’ Shahriar said, adding that any challenge could be overcome given the intention with much focus on people’s wellbeing.
He said that Bangladesh had opened around 17 missions abroad over the last 10 years while it had a plan to open 10 more in the next five years.
About the Rohingya issue, the state minister said that Bangladesh needed to move on without confining itself to one single issue as it had much more things to deal with.
Highlighting Bangladesh’s meaningful engagement with Myanmar and the world, he said that Bangladesh was on the right track and no country would get any chance to criticise it over the issue as they did not get in the past.
‘We’ve not failed,’ he said, adding that the entire world was with Bangladesh.
Towfiqul Islam focused on investment issues and laid emphasis on engaging the private sector and promoting joint venture.
He also talked about comprehensive economic partnership agreement and bilateral Free Trade Agreement.
Earlier, the state minister and founding members of DCAB cut a cake to mark the 21st anniversary of the association, and launched its official website.
The DCAB honoured its five founding members — Barta24.com editor-in-chief Alamgir Hossain, Kaler Kantho executive editor Mostofa Kamal, Bhorer Kagoj editor Shyamal Dutta, senior journalists Anis Alamgir and Aman Ud Dowla — at the function where they shared their memories with DCAB since its inception.
The state minister handed over crests to DCAB founding members.
At the beginning of the programme, the guests, senior journalists and DCAB members observed a one-minute silence paying homage to the victims of Friday’s terror attacks on two mosques in New Zealand during Jumma prayers that left 49 people, including two Bangladeshi nationals, dead.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net

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