Staff Reporter:
Foreign Minister Dr. Khalilur Rahman yesterday said Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s recent visit to Malaysia has elevated bilateral relations to a new level, marked by close personal communication be-tween the two prime ministers and major progress in trade, labour and strategic cooperation.
“Malaysia willingly agreed to put the negotiations on a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bangladesh on the fast track,” he told a media briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while high-lighting the outcomes of the prime minister’s just-concluded visits to Malaysia and China.
Dr Rahman said that Bangladesh and Malaysia expressed commitment to conclude a mutually beneficial, comprehensive and future-oriented FTA by 2027.
The foreign minister said the prime minister’s engagements in Kuala Lumpur underscored Bangladesh’s growing importance to Malaysia.
He said photographs and video footage of the visit reflected the warmth of the relationship and the strong personal rapport between Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim.
Dr. Khalilur said the visit yielded a number of substantive outcomes that would further strengthen bilat-eral relations.
In the presence of the two prime ministers, Bangladesh and Malaysia signed a Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) on cultural cooperation and exchanged two ministerial-level notes on enhancing cooper-ation in counter-terrorism capacity building and investment promotion.
The two sides also agreed to resume the long-suspended Bilateral Consultations Meeting (BCM) between their foreign ministries at an early date.
The foreign minister said both countries welcomed progress towards establishing the Malaysia-Bangladesh Joint Business Council and discussed strengthening business-to-business engagement, regular dialogue and investment cooperation between their private sectors.
Dr. Khalilur said the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to safe, regular and transparent labour mi-gration.
He said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim assured the employment of 8,000 Bangladeshi work-ers, while both countries agreed to resume the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers, facilitate the de-ployment of skilled manpower, regularise undocumented workers, ensure the welfare and security of migrant workers and reduce recruitment costs.
He said progress was also made in reviewing the existing labour cooperation memorandum through the Joint Working Group (JWG), paving the way for a new or updated agreement in line with current la-bour market requirements.
On the Rohingya issue, the foreign minister said Malaysia assured Bangladesh of its active role in sup-porting a sustainable solution to the crisis and the early repatriation of the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.
He said Malaysia reaffirmed its commitment to advancing the issue through the ASEAN framework and expressed interest in engaging directly with Myanmar to facilitate progress.
Dr. Khalilur said Malaysia also reiterated its support for Bangladesh’s bid to become an ASEAN Sectoral Dialogue Partner and expressed a positive outlook towards strengthening Bangladesh’s engagement with the regional bloc.
He added that Malaysia expressed strong interest in expanding investment and business partnerships with Bangladesh in priority sectors, including energy, digital infrastructure, telecommunications, electric ve-hicles, technology transfer, ports and logistics.
Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shama Obaed Islam, BIDA Executive Chairman Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun, Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were present at the briefing.
