High Commission of India
Dhaka

Press statement by Foreign Secretary
Dhaka, April 9, 2018

Your Excellency, Foreign Secretary, Md Shahidul Haque

Secretaries from other Ministries of the Government of Bangladesh

Distinguished members of the Bangladesh delegation

Friends from the media

Ladies and Gentlemen

At the outset, I would like to thank the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh for the warmth and hospitality extended to me and my delegation. This is my first visit to Bangladesh and let say how very happy I am to be in ‘Sonar Bangla’. Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate Bangladesh on achieving a very significant milestone in meeting the criteria for graduating from LDC to Developing Country recently.

2. Friends, India attaches the utmost importance to its relations with Bangladesh. Our partnership today touches upon virtually all areas of human endeavour and are based on fraternal ties that are reflective of a partnership based on sovereignty, equality, trust and understanding that goes far beyond a strategic partnership. Our Prime Minister has said “Pehle to hum paas paas the, ab saath saath bhi hain”. His vision of “Sabka saath sabka vikaas” or “Development for All” also encompasses our neighbouring countries. Bangladesh occupies a pre-eminent position in India’s Neighbourhood First Policy. As the External Affairs Minister of India said during her visit to Dhaka last October, “padosi pehle, aur padosi mein Bangladesh sabse pehle”. We remain fully committed to playing a useful role as Bangladesh’s development partner as you move to achieve your goal of becoming a middle income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041.

3. We have made tangible progress on almost every item on the agenda set by the two Prime Ministers during the State Visit of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh to India in April 2017 and that of the Prime Minister of India to Dhaka in June 2015. We have been able to explore new and high-technology areas for joint cooperation and, at the same time, been able to reinvigorate and restore our old connectivity links. India is fully committed to realising the Prime Minister of Bangladesh’s vision of restoration of pre-1965 links encompassing road, rail, water and coastal shipping. Our efforts in this direction have undoubtedly brought our people closer than ever before. We have worked together with vision and purpose to implement the various elements of the Land Boundary Agreement of 1974 and its Protocol of 2011 following its ratification by both sides in 2015. This is no mean achievement.

4. We have also moved ahead in concrete terms on many of the other decisions taken by our leadership. Some noteworthy developments in the last one year alone bear mention: inauguration of the second Bhairab and Titas bridges under the Indian Line of Credit, start of full-fledged train and bus services between Kolkata and Khulna, launch of end-to-end customs and immigration services for the Maitree Express and of rail services on the Radhikapur-Birol section, 24x7 operationalization of the Petrapole land port, signature of the agreement for supply of diesel to Bangladesh etc.

5. Our discussions today have been extremely useful. We discussed the challenges and opportunities that we need to face together. One such challenge is that of terrorism, extremism and radicalization and we will continue to fight this menace together and along with other like-minded countries. We also discussed various aspects of our bilateral relations and reviewed progress on key initiatives and decisions. We are satisfied with the progress achieved in areas such as trade and investment, security, connectivity, border management, power, energy, shipping, people-to-people exchanges, to name a few. Today, we add another 6 documents to our large and growing list of meaningful agreements signed during the recent visits of PM Modi to Bangladesh and PM Sheikh Hasina to India. These include the implementation MoU on the friendship pipeline between Numaligarh and Parbatipur, an MoU on cooperation between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh BETAR, an MoU for setting up an ICCR Urdu Chair in Dhaka University and an Addendum to the GCNEP-BAEC Interagency Agreement. We have also signed 2 more MoUs for grant projects whereby we will set up language labs in 500 schools in Bangladesh and upgrade different roads in Rangpur city. This is part of our endeavour to undertake projects in Bangladesh in various socio-economic sectors, including education, culture, health, community welfare, road infrastructure etc. for which we are providing 1600 crore taka under grant financing.

6. India remains a committed development partner of Bangladesh and we have totally extended lines of credit of over USD 8 billion to Bangladesh in the last seven years. This is the largest amount of credit India has ever committed to any single country. We are confident that this credit will be useful to Bangladesh as it pursues its developmental priorities.

7. From 2008-09, our bilateral trade has almost tripled from USD 2.75 billion to 7.52 billion in 2016-17. Bangladesh is India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia. 13 agreements in the private sector worth nearly USD 10 billion were signed during the visit of Prime Minister of Bangladesh to India last year in areas such as energy, logistics, education, and medicine. We are committed to further tap the immense potential that exists in this field.

8. Our cooperation in the area of energy and power sector is a source of immense satisfaction to both of us. India is currently supplying 660 MW of power to the Bangladesh and we are on course to add at least 500 MW more by this June. As founding member of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), we were honoured to receive the Hon’ble President of Bangladesh to India at the recent founding conference of the ISA. We expect that the solar based telecommunication project to be undertaken in Bangladesh within the ISA framework will help in increasing mobile connectivity in remote areas such as the Haor and Sundarbans. We are also confident that the initiatives that we have jointly identified in the oil and gas sector will yield immense benefits to both our peoples.

9. We have also been organizing a number of capacity-building programmes for Bangladeshi officials in different fields, including civil servants, police officers, judicial officers, customs officers, fire-fighters, etc. We are happy to do more. More than 1500 scholarships and training programmes are awarded every year to Bangladeshi nationals.

10. People-to-people contact is the edifice of our relationship and we have taken a number of steps that have more resonance at the popular level. At present, Bangladesh nationals are the largest number of visitors to India – our High Commission in Bangladesh issued a record number of 14 lakh visas in 2017, the highest by any Indian Mission. This has also been possible due to our visa policy which has been considerably liberalized during the last year or so including 5 year visas for senior citizens above 65 years. Our focus is on further increasing youth, media and academic exchanges. A 100 member strong Bangladeshi youth delegation has been visiting India for the last 6 years.

11. Friends, Bangladesh’s humanitarian gesture in supporting lakhs of displaced persons from the Rakhine state of Myanmar is admirable. India has been fully supportive of the efforts being made to resolve the crisis, including early repatriation of the displaced people. On the part of the Government of India, we had sent relief materials for 300,000 people in September last year under ‘Operation Insaniyat’ to support Government of Bangladesh in its humanitarian efforts. On the Myanmar side, we are providing socio-economic support under our Rakhine State Development Programme including construction of pre-fabricated housing in order to meet the needs of the returning people.

12. Today, I am happy to announce our second phase of humanitarian assistance for the relief camps in Cox’s Bazar. Under this, medical field hospitals specially focused on women and child care with all necessary medical equipments and support systems are envisaged. Relief supplies including milk powder, baby food, dried fish, cooking stoves and cooking fuel, raincoats and gumboots are also planned. This is based on the requirements projected by the Government of Bangladesh, especially to cater for the difficult rainy season to come.

13. Friends, while I have focused on the tremendous progress we have achieved in our bilateral relationship, we are also aware of a few of the outstanding issues. We assure you we are working hard to resolve them.

14. In conclusion, I would like to thank His Excellency the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh again for his invitation and generous hospitality and to all the distinguished persons who are present here today.

15. I end by wishing you all “Shubho Nababarsho”.

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