Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has secured assurance from the Hague that it would support Dhaka in water management, trade and investment, and climate change issues.
Bangladesh on the other hand has publicly supported the Netherlands’ candidature for the UN Security Council non-permanent seat for 2017-18 term.
Hasina went to the Netherlands on Tuesday on a three-day trip on the invitation of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
This is the first time a Bangladesh prime minister is visiting the European country. The visit is also important as this is the first bilateral visit of Hasina to any European country after she assumed power in 2014 election.
Both the leaders had official talks on Monday and a joint statement was issued after that.
“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Prime Minister Rutte had in-depth discussions on bilateral and global issues of mutual interest, including trade and investment, private sector development, agriculture, port development, and rule of law,” said the statement.
Delta Coalition
The two PMs agreed to work together to make densely populated delta areas across the world safer and economically more viable in the framework of the Delta Coalition, which is a forum of the Netherlands, Japan and Columbia formed for a global advocacy for large delta areas. Many other countries have already expressed their willingness to join the forum.
Deep sea port
The statement said the Dutch PM expressed interest in Bangladesh’s deep sea ports. “Bangladesh Prime Minister noted the Dutch interest in the deep sea ports projects and assured the Dutch side of her government’s due consideration of the port projects proposition.” Bangladesh wants to build a deep sea port at Paira in Patuakhali and a number of countries expressed their interests to develop it.
Fair pricing
Hasina sought the Netherlands’ support to address the issues related to access to finance and fair pricing in the RMG sector. “The Netherlands appreciated Bangladesh government’s strong commitment towards a sustainable RMG sector, encouraged the government of Bangladesh to play a leading role in the sector and assured Bangladesh of their cooperation in this regard,” says the statement.
UNSC membership
The Dutch PM thanked Bangladesh for its support in bidding for the non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for 2017-18, the statement said.
Climate change
Both countries agreed that at the next climate change summit to be held later this month in Paris, there should be a legally-binding agreement on a fair and effective new international framework applicable to all parties.
Instruments
The four instrument were signed during the visit. These are memorandum of understanding on foreign office consultations, letter of intent on training cooperation for junior diplomats from Bangladesh, memorandum of agreement between Saxion University of Applied Sciences, School of Creative Technology and BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology, and bilateral cooperation agreement between Saxion University of Applied Sciences and BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology.