Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is due in Dhaka on Friday evening on a 24-hour whirlwind visit, the ministry of foreign affairs has confirmed.
Published : 20 Mar 2014, 05:07 PM
Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali will receive him at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at about 8pm.
Kishida would be the first Japanese foreign minister to visit Bangladesh after 2006 when the then Foreign Minister and current Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso visited Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last visited Japan in 2010.
Earlier Japanese news portal Kyodo News International on Wednesday reported that the foreign minister was “planning to visit” Bangladesh on Mar 21.
Dhaka takes this visit ‘positively’ as it comes within two months of the current government assuming power after the much-talked-about Jan 5 elections.
The elections disappointed Japan as more than half of the seats returned winner uncontested due to poll boycott by BNP and its allies.
In a post-election statement, Japan, in an apparent call to hold fresh elections, urged political parties to start “serious efforts” to provide Bangladeshis with a “voting opportunity for making political choice in a manner that responds to their aspirations”. Its ally US openly demanded fresh elections “as soon as possible”.
Japan is the largest bilateral development partner of Bangladesh since 1972 when it established diplomatic relations with Bangladesh. Its grants and aid reached $ 11 billion last year. The two-way trade is close to $ 2 billion with Japan’s exports more than $ 1 billion.
Japan is Bangladesh’s traditional friend, but the ruling Awami League is currently more focused on China in its diplomatic relations due to what finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith says “strategic reasons”.
The relations of China and Japan, geographically separated by South China Sea, are often strained.
China like India unhesitatingly backed the current government after the controversial elections.
The finance minister on Jan 23, when outgoing and new JICA Chief Representatives met him, told journalists that China was also becoming an ‘influential’ development partner like Japan.
“We are prioritising our relationship with China considering its global economic influence. It’s a strategic reason,” he had said.
Foreign ministry officials told bdnews24.com that Japan is taking this visit as a way of “comprehensively” strengthening bilateral relations.
The embassy in a media release also said the minister would meet his Bangladeshi counterpart and Prime Minister “to discuss how to comprehensively strengthen the bilateral relationship with Bangladesh, which has traditionally been a Japan-friendly country”.
He would meet his counterpart Mahmood Ali on Saturday morning and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the afternoon before leaving Dhaka for Myanmar.
Mahmood Ali will host a lunch in his honour.