Bss, New Delhi :
Cooperation in the energy sector and improvement in road and port infrastructure are the key areas where India and Bangladesh are looking to engage in a bilateral discussion within the next three months.
Bangladesh finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said his government already had a high-level discussion with India on these areas of bilateral cooperation and is expected to hold further discussions in the coming months. He told this in an interactive session at Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata last night.
After the new government in India, an impression has been conveyed that there will be continuity in policies. Some issues need to be discussed bilaterally, which also include energy cooperation, he said.
“Besides energy cooperation, bilateral discussions are also expected on the use of waterways and land routes for extensive use.”
“In some areas there has been a sort of diagnosis of what is to be done and what not to be done. Then the government in India changed. With the new government, we had a high-level contact last October in Washington and we were told just this month that it would be exactly as it was before,” Muhith said.
“Following that some of the developments, which had taken place in the last four years, are now to be discussed bilaterally and in some areas trilaterally. So, that’s in the offing,” he said.
“One of the areas is energy cooperation. It involves not simply India and Bangladesh but also Bhutan and Nepal.
“With Bhutan and Nepal, we have done some work and we were supposed to put it in a combined gathering of those countries. Exactly at the time, we made this request, there was a change in the government. Now anytime we expect these trilateral meetings – one with Bangladesh, Nepal and India and Bangladesh Bhutan and Nepal on mainly energy cooperation.” At present, Bangladesh imports around 500 megawatt of power from India and is looking to source more from India as it looks to sustain an average growth rate of 6.2 percent.
