Chinese President Xi Jinping’s groundbreaking visit to Bangladesh this week is expected to raise bilateral relations to new heights and result in investment to boost Bangladesh’s economic growth.
The visit, ahead of the eighth BRICS summit in Goa starting Saturday, will be a “milestone,” Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Kong Xuanyou said at a press briefing on Monday in Beijing, the Xinhua News Agency reported, adding that deals would be inked, and that bilateral relations would be strengthened.
During his state visit, Xi will meet with President Abdul Hamid, National Assembly Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, and hold talks with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“This is the first state visit [to Bangladesh] from a Chinese head of State for the past three decades,” Jiang Jing...
Leading economists, academics and policy researchers today stressed that Dhaka- Beijing cooperation should be further enhanced in the areas of energy, power, agriculture, education and human resources development.
They said that smart negotiations and smooth implementation of Chinese funded projects are similarly important to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from China with favourable terms and conditions, BSS reports.
“Bangladesh needs very smart negotiations with China over the possibility of US$23 billion
The horror of worker deaths is overshadowing Eid celebrations in Bangladesh. Last weekend, a fierce fire ripped through a three-storey packaging factory and eventually caused the building to collapse. The death toll so far at Tampaco Foils Ltd is 33 workers, with dozens more injured. Before it was reduced to ruins, Tampaco counted Nestle in Bangladesh and British American Tobacco among its multinational clients.
The Bangladesh government has announced compensation for the victims and ordered an investigation. Criminal complaints have reportedly been filed, including against the factory owner, who is a former member of parliament.
But this latest disaster begs the question: how many more people need to die before Bangladesh finally tackles its unsafe factories?
Former child laborer Nazma Akter knew she would dedicate her life to improving workers’ rights when she joined her first protest outside a garment factory in Bangladesh when still a teenager several decades ago.
From the age of 11, Akter worked 14-hour days alongside her mother on the factory floor where she says unpaid wages and verbal and physical abuse were common.
After taking part in the protest in the capital Dhaka, she was beaten by police, fired from her job and blacklisted.
But now Akter, 43, campaigns to defend workers’ rights as head of Sommilito Garments Sramik
Bangladesh has emerged as a country free of risk of money laundering and terror financing, downing fears that the country might re-enter the list for “slack implementation of laws”.
In current rating, Bangladesh avoided the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) and was declared a risk free nation, Bangladesh Bank said in a statement today.
Fears were on after Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), the global body that ranks countries, acknowledged Bangladesh of having “slack imp...
A private firm in Bangladesh is planning to put up a 30 MW solar power plant on Madarer Char, an island formed by sediments brought down from the Himalayas by the Teesta river. A joint venture with a French company, the island is in the Dimla sub-district of Nilphamari district in north-western Bangladesh, about 40 km downstream from the place where the transboundary river Teesta enters Bangladesh from India.
The joint venture company formed for the purpose by Bangladeshi business house Nilsagor Group and the French company Velcan Energy will sell the electricity to the national grid.
While a sediment-formed island – called char – can suffer partial or complete inundation, some
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