Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed her firm determination to speed up the country's development by maintaining good relations and strengthening connectivity with the neighbours, the state-run news agency BSS reported.
"Our aim is to further accelerate the country's uplift by maintaining good ties and strengthening connectivity with the neighbours and improve the living standards of the people by utilizing Bangladesh's geographical importance in South Asia," she said.
In this connection, Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar have undertaken a joint plan titled "BCIM Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC)" to ensure economic development of the region by increasing connectivity.
The Prime Minister said this while addressing a civic reception at the Park Lane Hotel here on Sunday evening.
The United Kingdom Awami League accorded the reception in honour of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Prime Minister said Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan have reached a consensus to increase connectivity among them for the sake of their development.
Terming poverty as the common enemy of the region, Sheikh Hasina said all countries will have to fight together against it. "It won't be proper to think about only ourselves, we will also have to think about our neighbours," she said.
Describing the implementation of the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with India as a huge diplomatic and political success of the present government, the Prime Minister said whenever Awami League government assumed office; it solved problems one after another.
Sheikh Hasina said her government has solved the maritime dispute with Myanmar and India by lodging cases with international arbitration court through maintaining friendly relations with them.
"We have solved problems with the neighbours through discussions and it is Awami League which could bring honour for the Bangalee nation politically and diplomatically," she said.
Highlighting the background of execution of the LBA, the Prime Minister said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had taken initiative to solve the problems of the enclave people.
Bangabandhu, she said, signed the historic LBA with the then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi on May 16 in 1974 in New Delhi to solve the decades-old problems of the enclave people.
The Prime Minister said Bangladesh parliament ratified the LBA through the third amendment to the constitution on November 28 in 1974. "But after the assassination of Bangabandhu, no subsequent government took any effective initiative to implement the LBA," she said.
Sheikh Hasina said the sufferings of the enclave people would have been removed and Indian parliament would have ratified the LBA much earlier had Bangabandhu not been assassinated in 1975.
She said the subsequent governments of Zia, Ershad, Khaleda Zia and caretaker government did not have the courage to solve the problem.
The Prime Minister said her government has inked the Ganges Water Agreement with India and resolved the decades-old Chittagong Hill Tracts problem.
