Hasina for closer ties with China

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has pushed for closer ties with China immediately after her visit to Japan, where she promised to carry Dhaka-Tokyo ties to a new high.

"Bangladesh and China’s relationship is based on close and comprehensive partnership, which has evolved through cooperation based on mutual trust, respect and earnest desire to strengthen our two countries’ relations," she said at Kunming, where the 2nd South Asian Expo organised by Yunnan, China's 'bridgehead' province, opened on Friday.

South Asian analysts say the way Hasina is seeking to balance her relations with China and Japan, especially to push her country's goals for economic development, may be a pointer to other South Asian nations including India.

"We expect Modi to do much like what Hasina is doing. We need both China and Japan and it is in the interests of countries like India and Bangladesh that China and Japan are at peace," said Sabyasachi Basu Roy Choudhury, South Asia expert and vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University.

"We gain nothing if the two Asian giants fight and we need to work a course to be on good terms with both China and Japan."

Hasina also strongly pitched for the "early realisation of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar-Economic-Corridor" that the Chinese are pushing for and India has agreed to explore.

"This would bring socio-economic benefits for all of us in the region," she said.

She praised the vision of the Chinese leadership in taking forward the country's economy.

"China has attained tremendous economic and technological progress and is moving to becoming the largest economy in the world, with the economic emancipation of its people. This has been possible due to China’s dynamic and visionary leadership."

Hasina also pitched for attracting more investments to Bangladesh by highlighting the way she has grown in the past five years.

"Between 2009 and 2013, when we had the responsibility to govern the country, Bangladesh’s achievements have been remarkable," she said.

The PM said that in this period, Bangladesh has steadily maintained a more than 6 percent annual GDP growth rate; 50 million people have joined the middle income group; export earnings have risen by 107 percent, remittance by 62 percent; foreign currency reserve by 217 percent and power output has gone up by 109 percent.

Bangladesh is today poised to become a middle-income country, thus, fulfilling our “Vision 2021”, she said.