Bangladesh, the Maldives to sign 4 deals today

The Bangladesh-Maldives bilateral relationship is set to see a boost as the two South Asian countries are going to sign at least four MoUs on trade, tourism, fisheries, and health today.

The MoUs are likely to be signed in a meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih at the Prime Minister's Office.

Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih arrived in Dhaka yesterday morning to attend the celebrations of Mujib Borsho and the golden jubilee of independence.

His wife, First Lady Madam Fazna Ahmed, is accompanying him.

Besides, a delegation of 27, including Maldives Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid and Economic Development Minister Fayyaz Ismail, has also joined him.

According to the foreign ministry, Bangladesh and Maldives have been working closely on bilateral and international issues since the establishment of the diplomatic relationship in 1978.

The Maldives, an island country and a major tourist destination of the world, is home to some 100,000 Bangladeshis. The two countries have a limited scale of trading too, but there are enormous scopes for boosting it, officials said.

Foreign ministry officials said Bangladesh and Maldives signed two MoUs during the visit of Maldives Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid in February this year.

One was on cooperation on training foreign services officials and the other on human resources recruitment from Bangladesh. Today's meeting against that backdrop is likely to further cement the relations, said officials.

Mashfee Binte Shams, secretary (east) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the Maldives largely depends on imports.

Given the expertise and availability of manufacturing and IT services base, Bangladesh can greatly boost exports to the Maldives, she said.

She also said, "We can extend products and services to the Maldives. We can also enhance cultural cooperation,

"The Maldives has a lot of experience in deep-sea fishing and Bangladesh can take technical expertise from it," she told The Daily Star.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to Maldives Rear Admiral Mohammad Nazmul Hassan said Bangladesh can export processed food, ceramics, leather goods, RMG, jute products, pharmaceutical products.

"Presently, transport cost is high because our products need to be exported via Singapore or Colombo ports. So, we have proposed a direct shipping service between Bangladesh and Maldives. This can greatly reduce transport cost and help increase trade," he told this correspondent on Tuesday.

Now only three Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies have the approval to export medicines to the Maldives, and the number can be increased as there are a lot of world-class pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh also proposed a Preferential Trade Agreement for the consideration of Maldives.

Given that the Maldives is the world's leading tourist destination, tour operators from the two countries can have joint ventures to promote tourism, and Bangladesh can also learn from Maldivian expertise on tourism, he said.

Also, Maldives is a major exporter of tuna fish. Bangladesh has a vast area of the deep sea but does not have the skills of deep-sea fishing.

"We can establish a joint venture in this field," he said.

As a good number of undocumented Bangladeshis are living in the Maldives, it may seek their repatriation as their economy is now not in a good shape due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nazmul Hassan said.

"We would request that those who volunteer to return can surely be repatriated. But those who want to continue should have a chance for regularization and continue to work," Nazmul Hassan said.

The Maldives also seeks to recruit more doctors and nurses from Bangladesh. The foreign ministry has referred the issue to the health ministry for consideration, he said.

"We already have very friendly relations with the Maldives. We would like to take this to the next stage," the Bangladesh envoy said.