Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called for building a strong partnership between Asia and Europe in the fields of trade and technical cooperation to translate connectivity between the two continents into a reality.
The Prime Minister made the remark while addressing the Plenary Session of the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit-2014 titled "Asia partnership in addressing global matters in an inter-connected world" at Milano Congressi in the Italian city of Milan on Thursday evening. "The more favorable trade regime, the more convenient technical cooperation, the more vibrant people-to-people contact will translate Asia-Europe connectivity into a reality," she said. Sheikh Hasina said there is a strong historic link between Asia and Europe based on people-to-people contact, cultural and educational exchange and social interactions and migration. "These are instrumental in building and fostering Asia-Europe connectivity," she said. The Prime Minister said Asia-Europe connectivity also demands global issues including climate change, migration, terrorism, maritime affairs, disabilities, disaster risk reduction and management, socio-cultural cooperation and human rights. "If we can forge cooperation on global issues, we can also ensure sustainable and inclusive global growth," she added. In this connection, Sheikh Hasina noted that European Union is now Bangladesh's largest export destination and said many Asian countries are negotiating with EU for greater trade arrangements.
She urged the world leaders to put the issues of poverty alleviation and access to education to the center of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. "As over 1.3bn people around the globe still live in utter poverty and huge numbers of children are out of education, the eradication of poverty and access to education should be at the center of the Post-2015 Development Agenda," she said. She hoped that our experience with MDGs attests that mobilisation of adequate resources would be the key to the success of the Post- 2015 Agend. For promoting regional connectivity, she said, Bangladesh has undertaken some massive infrastructure and connectivity projects. "Special economic zones are being developed across the country particularly to allow potential investors to invest in Bangladesh especially in the context of our growing integration into the regional connectivity framework," she said.