Dr M Nazrul Islam, the Charge D'affaires at the Bangladesh Embassy in Beijing, said that reducing the trade deficit between Bangladesh and China is the top priority of the mission.
In an exclusive interview with the Bangladesh Post, the career diplomat recently said: ‘Whenever we meet our Chinese counterparts; we request them to take concrete actions to that end.’
‘We have already witnessed some expected results of our efforts during the high-level visits to Bangladesh from China,’ he added.
The envoy also said China first granted duty-free access to 97 percent of Bangladeshi products. Beijing has recently issued another gazette increasing the quota to 98 percent. During the visit of State Councilor and Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi in August 2022, China declared to increase the quota to 99 percent, he noted.
Citing that Bangladesh is studying the feasibility of the Free Trade Agreement FTA with China, he said: ‘We are reviewing the prospects of benefits in this regard’.
He maintained that Bangladesh is aware of the fact that China is a successful nation and it is challenging for any country to gain the upper hand while doing business with Beijing.
‘Thus, Dhaka wants Beijing to give us some special privileges that will benefit our industries and increase our export to China without any possible loss to our industries,’ he added.
‘I am optimistic about working out some effective mechanism to reduce the trade deficit between Bangladesh and China,’ he further added.
The envoy said another priority of the embassy is increasing Chinese investments and keeping China-financed big projects in Bangladesh moving on, contributing to the country’s economy.
As Beijing has made significant progress in the fields of science and technologies, he is working on bringing more Bangladeshi students to different educational institutes across China, he said.
Dr Nazrul mentioned that Bangladesh is doing great in science and technology; however, Dhaka wants to forge ahead win-win cooperation with Beijing on these two fronts, too.
He mentioned that in line with the foreign policy adopted by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh MujiburRahman, “friendship to all, malice to none”, Bangladesh endeavors to explore gainful engagement with all States across the globe and China is a vital country to this effect.
‘However, as Bangladesh is now one of the fastest-growing economies and a middle-income country, we want to forge ahead cooperation with China objectively and prudently so that we can reap the utmost benefits from the cooperation,’ he maintained.
In reply to a query, Dr Nazrul said that Beijing also wants to further strengthen its bilateral ties with Dhaka to play a role in the development of Bangladesh.
‘We always pay utmost importance to the interests of the Bangladeshi community in China. As a result, many students stuck back home now can return to China,’ he added.
He further mentioned that Bangladesh is the first country whose students can openly return to China. It is an outcome of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Dhaka which was stalled at the onslaught of the Covid pandemic.
Much to the relief of many, the Dhaka-Guangzhou flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines kicked off, showing the fruits of the long efforts taken by the Beijing embassy, he noted.
The envoy recalled that Bangladesh celebrated the 100th Birth Centenary of Father of the Nation and the 50th Independence Day celebration in Bangladesh last year.
On the occasion, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a video message, which was aired at the event on the very first day of the celebration in the presence of Prime Minister Sheik Hasina.
‘Our embassy convinced China to help Bangladesh fight the pandemic, contributing to saving people’s lives and keeping the economy running when vaccines were found nowhere,’ he maintained.
It was a huge diplomatic success and the Beijing embassy worked together with the ministries of Bangladesh and China to achieve this feat, he noted.
