Transcript of the Press Availability by the Minister Martynov on the Outcomes of Talks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, Dipu Moni (Minsk, May 22, 2011)

22/05/2012

S.Martynov: Today we welcome the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, who is in Minsk with the official visit. This is the first official visit of a high-level Bangladesh official to Belarus.

During the talks with the Minister we noted that during the last months we saw significant intensification of the relations between Belarus and Bangladesh, there was an exchange of visits at various levels and various directions of cooperation. We agreed on a number of issues of further cooperation. In particular, we agreed to create a bilateral commission that will have its first meeting in Minsk in the fall of this year. Within its activities the commission will discuss the issues of trade, economic and other avenues of cooperation between our states.

We underlined that the economies of our states are complementary. Our current bilateral trade is around US$140 million and it increased 2.5-fold during the last year. We agreed on the need to diversify our trade, because currently it consists mainly of fertilizers. Diversification should be made with machines, equipment and other products that are manufactured in Belarus and Bangladesh.

As the next step we agreed on possible cooperation in assembly of equipment and machines in Bangladesh, and on producing pharmaceuticals in Belarus. We also agreed to start working on preparation of the visit of the Prime Minister of Belarus to Bangladesh that may be carried out in the fall of this year. As a preparatory stage for this visit, apart from commission meeting in Minsk, we have invited a business delegation from Bangladesh to visit Belarus.

We have discussed our contacts within the United Nations Organization, where Belarus and Bangladesh actively support each other not only to elected bodies, which is certainly important, but also in common initiatives. Belarus becomes a co-author of Bangladeshi initiatives, Bangladesh supports our resolutions. Taking the opportunity I would like to specially thank Madam Minister for the active support from her part of the Belarusian initiative on combating trafficking in persons. Madam Minister is an active participant of the Group of Friends of Belarus on this issue.

TV Channel “ATN News” (Bangladesh): This is a first visit of the Bangladesh Foreign Minister to Belarus. How do you assess this visit?

S.Martynov: As I have noted during our meeting, this visit opens new horizons for our cooperation and we should work to make it historic in the context of intensification of cooperation between our states.

As the most important outcome of our talks I see an agreement to further expand our trade and economic cooperation. As I have already noted during the last year the bilateral trade between Belarus and Bangladesh was around US$140 million and we have a serious potential for cooperation in various directions.

In the nearest time we will offer to our governments the proposals on extension of the spheres of cooperation between Belarus and Bangladesh.

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