New foreign minister congratulated

Head of missions of seven ASEAN countries congratulated the new foreign minister after giving him a joint courtesy call on Thursday and hoped Bangladesh’s relations with their countries would be strengthened during his tenure.

Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali thanked them for their gesture.

The foreign ministry in a media release said ambassadors and high commissioners of seven countries – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – of the 10-countries grouping, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met the minister in the morning at his office.

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Singapore, Cambodia, and Laos are the other members of the Southeast Asia’s political and economic grouping formed in August 1967.

Recently it formed a “Dhaka Committee” that the envoys appraised the minister.

Malaysian High Commissioner Norlin Othman, as the current Chair of the Committee, said such committee was formed in countries which are dialogue partner of the group.

But she said the ASEAN Secretariat approved the Dhaka Committee, despite Bangladesh is not a dialogue partner.

She invited the foreign minister to join the inauguration ceremony of the Dhaka Committee scheduled in first week of April.

The minister in reply commended their efforts in establishing the Dhaka committee and hoped that this would lead to Bangladesh becoming a dialogue partner of ASEAN soon.

He also expressed satisfaction over the signing of visa waiver agreements for diplomatic and official passport-holders with seven out of ten ASEAN Countries and expressed the hope that such agreements with rest of the ASEAN countries will follow soon.

Expressing “great satisfaction” at the current state of bilateral relations with ASEAN countries as a whole, the minister thanked the government of ASEAN countries for hosting around half a million Bangladeshi workers in the region.

He also urged the envoys to consider recruiting more Bangladeshi nationals - professional, skilled and semi-skilled- in their respective countries.

Besides, he asked the envoys to work for the promotion of bilateral trade between Bangladesh and the ASEAN region with a focus on “addressing the adverse trade imbalances of Bangladesh with their respective countries”.