More high-level Chinese visits

Yan Junqi, vice-chairperson of Chinese National Congress, will arrive in Dhaka on Tuesday on a three-day visit.

The Chinese embassy on Monday said she is visiting at the invitation of Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury.

The purpose of the visit is “to promote friendly contacts and exchanges” between the two countries' parliaments.

Junqi is also the Chairperson of China Association for Promoting Democracy.

Her visit came as part of “a series of high-level visits” between Dhaka and Beijing this year, which China's Dhaka envoy Li Jun feels will boost bilateral relations.

Yan Junqi

Junqi would hold talks with the Speaker and meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and also BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia during her stay until Thursday.

She would also meet the members of the parliamentary standing committee on women and children affairs and some women MPs.

She would arrive on the day when the Vice Chairperson of China’s National Military Commission General Xu Qiliang leaves Dhaka after a three-day visit, during which Dhaka and Beijing signed four agreements on military cooperation.

Bangladesh’s President M Abdul Hamid is scheduled to visit Shanghai end of May to attend the Asia Confidence Building Summit, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party leaders had been invited to visit China in June.

Ambassador Li Jun says the Vice Minister of China’s Ministry of Water Resources would visit Bangladesh later this year “for renewing the agreement on hydrological data and information exchange between the two governments”.

Delivering a lecture recently on Sino-Bangla relationship, he had said that the relations were growing faster than ever.

People-to-people exchanges had crossed 70,000 last year and the two-way trade soared to over $ 10 billion, he said citing examples.

With new reform measures getting under way, he also had said that China was looking at investing an additional $ 500 billion in other countries, import goods over $ 10 trillion, and send 400 million tourists abroad over the next five years.

China’s current reforms would create “new and greater opportunities” for China’s relations with the external world.

As a neighbour, he had reiterated that “Bangladesh should have a good share of it”.

He said development visions of both sides were “inspiring each other to provide tremendous impetus to the bilateral co-operation”.