Economic corridor project welcome: minister

A businessman from Bangladesh promotes traditional handicrafts during a trade fair in Kunming, Yunnan province, in June. Economic ties between China and Bangladesh are becoming closer. Lin Yiguang / Xinhua

A proposal to further enhance economic development and cooperation between Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar is welcome, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said.

Moni made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China Daily during her recent visit to China.

"We congratulate China for proposing this innovative (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor) project. Bangladesh welcomes this proposal and stands eager to work with China, India and Myanmar for its early implementation," Moni said.

"I believe the (proposal) will provide a major boost to the trade and economic relations between China and the countries that the corridor would connect ... by greatly enhancing connectivity between them all."

The proposal to establish such a trade corridor in the four countries comes from an idea originally developed by Chinese scholars in Kunming at the end of the 1990s called the "Kunming Initiative".

The initiative evolved into the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation during its first meeting in 1999, to create a business platform where major stakeholders could exchange ideas on promoting economic growth and trade in the region.

When Premier Li Keqiang visited India in May, he for the first time officially called for establishing such an economic corridor, injecting new energy to the project.

Besides economic cooperation, the Bangladeshi foreign minister hopes the proposal can also work as a multinational framework for comprehensive cooperation between China and three other countries.

"It is expected to also give a fresh impetus to those countries' cooperative engagements and relations with China in fields including education, culture, sports and tourism," Moni said.

The corridor will also facilitate further people-to-people contact in the region, she added.

The corridor would cover 1.65 million square kilometers encompassing an estimated 440 million people in Yunnan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, West Bengal, Bihar and states in northern India.

To realize better connectivity with regional countries, Bangladesh proposed to build a railway as well as roads between the planned Deep Sea Port in Chittagong and Kunming via Myanmar, said the foreign minister, calling for more cooperation with China in infrastructure construction.

"We always want China beside us in our effort to develop our infrastructure. In the future, I hope that the cooperation from China in this particular sector will increase," Moni said.

China is one of the most important development partners of Bangladesh. It has extended tremendous support to the country's infrastructure development, including the construction of bridges and roads.

China has built six friendship bridges in Bangladesh and the seventh one is under construction. China also built the largest conference center in Dhaka as a symbol of friendship.

Besides, Bangladesh is seeking cooperation with China in other sectors, including oceanography, housing, agriculture and ship-building, the foreign minister said.

"China is a leading country in the field of oceanography ... we would like to see a framework of cooperation in oceanography between the universities and institutions of the two countries," said Moni, hoping China can offer equipment and scholarships.

Despite having about 475 species of fish, Bangladesh has not started any serious marine scientific research and experiences occasional food shortages.

Bangladesh does not have a single trawler equipped with processing facilities, or the capacity to remain at sea for months.

Bangladesh is a country where the land-people ratio is as acute as it is in Hong Kong, with little space for horizontal expansion.

"China is known for its world-class housing projects where high-rise buildings provide not only a better housing solution but also help to turn sparse and sporadic houses into a community. We would like to propose that China consider replicating this type of housing," the minister said.

To feed its huge population, the country is also hoping to learn agricultural technology for high-production crops, Moni said.

With these potential areas in bilateral cooperation, the minister holds an optimistic attitude toward future relations with China under its new leadership.

"Our friendly relations ... have steadily deepened and become multifaceted. Frequent and regular visits between the leaders and high officials of our two countries has further cemented the bonds of friendship between our two countries," she said.

"Our government is determined to continue to further strengthen these bonds."