Yunus to visit UK on June 9

Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is set to visit the UK on June 9-13 and will likely hold meetings with King Charles and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The detailed schedule and agenda of the visit to London are being worked out, said a foreign ministry official.

Repatriation of laundered money, trade and investment, development partnership, Rohingya crisis and regional cooperation in South Asia will be on the agenda during the trip, The Daily Star has learnt from diplomatic sources in London and Dhaka.

Top officials from the Bangladesh Bank and Anti-Corruption Commission, among others, will be accompanying him during the visit to discuss ways to repatriate the laundered money.

The UK has been one of the major destinations for the laundered money from Bangladesh.

"This will be a high priority visit after the China tour from political, economic and global perspectives," said a diplomatic source in Dhaka.

BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman is now living in London, while deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's sister's family is based in the UK, he said.

Tulip, along with her aunt Sheikh Hasina, mother Sheikh Rehana, brother Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby, and sister Azmina Siddiq, has been named in three separate cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission in January.

Al Jazeera reported that Bangladesh's former Land Minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury spent more than $500 million on luxury real estate in London, Dubai and New York but did not declare his overseas assets on his Bangladesh tax returns.

Repatriating laundered money has been an important issue for the interim government as huge amounts have been laundered to different countries over the years, a diplomatic source said.

The UK is an important country when it comes to the Rohingya crisis. Now that the funding for the Rohingya is declining, especially after the USAID funding cut worldwide, Dhaka will try to convince the UK for new funding, both as development aid and investment, sources said.

There are over 600,000 Bangladeshi-origin UK citizens there, making it a strong bond between the two countries. Yunus will be seeking to build a bridge between Bangladesh and the diaspora community through trade, investment and the use of expertise back in Bangladesh, sources said.