Bangladesh PM wishes CHOGM every success
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, expressing appreciation of
the noteworthy progress achieved by Sri Lanka during the brief period
since the eradication of terrorism, said she is looking forward to
attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri
Lanka in November this year. She wished the Summit all success, adding
that her government would do everything in its power to ensure an
entirely positive outcome.
She made these remarks when External Affairs Minister Prof G L Peiris
called on her at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dhaka on Thursday,
during his two-day official visit to Bangladesh.
Prof. Peiris briefed her comprehensively on the discussions which the
government of Sri Lanka held with Kamalesh Sharma, Secretary-General of
the Commonwealth, during his visit to Colombo this week.
He explained to the Prime Minister plans being made by Sri Lanka to
ensure that the themes and the emphasis of the discussions at the
upcoming Summit would yield results which are immediately
beneficial to all Member States of the Commonwealth, especially
developing nations which comprise the overwhelming majority of the
Commonwealth.
Recalling with pleasure his previous meeting with Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina when he visited Dhaka in August last year to deliver a
keynote address at the international seminar on “Development and
People’s Empowerment” organized by the government of Bangladesh, Prof.
Peiris made reference to her remarks on that occasion about the
sustained initiatives on the part of her government to make banking and
sound financial practices popular among the rural people.
In line with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s strong emphasis on
prosperity and innovation in the rural hinterland, Prof. Peiris said
that, at his recent meeting in New Delhi with Prime Minister Dr .Manmohan
Singh of India, he had expressed the emphatic support of the Government
of Sri Lanka for the proposal by the Commonwealth Secretary-General with
regard to the establishment of a Commonwealth Bank for Trade and
Investment.
Entirely in keeping with priorities in countries like Sri Lanka and
Bangladesh, he said that, throughout the deliberations at the
Commonwealth Summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka will place stress on
sustainability in respect of attainment of Millennium Development Goals,
with particular reference to such areas as poverty alleviation, social
mobility and climate change. Of special concern to the host country, Sri
Lanka, he observed, are practical strategies for skills development
through the spread of technology to enable talented youth to make the
maximum use of opportunities now increasingly opening up in the wake of
unprecedented development of highways, ports, harbours and other
infrastructure.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she found particularly useful
the focus which Sri Lanka was placing on the Commonwealth Business
Forum, to be held on the sidelines of the Summit. Minister Peiris
briefed her, as well, on the arrangements currently being made for the
People’s Forum, to be held in Dambulla and the Youth Forum, the venue of
which will be Hambantota.
Prof. Peiris thanked the government of Bangladesh for its consistent
support of Sri Lanka in international fora and especially for its
intervention at the 14th Session of the Universal Periodic Review of Sri
Lanka held in November last year.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina responded that she is convinced of the
need for the international community to provide assistance and
co-operation for Sri Lanka’s efforts to raise the social and economic
standards of its people after overcoming the challenges of terrorism,
and that her government will continue to support these efforts.
Bangladesh occupies the Chair of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action
Group. |