Senior executives of two famous British companies are here in Dhaka amid the travel alert for Bangladesh.
Eugene Leong, director of sales of Rolls Royce, and Andrew Beer, executive director of Standard Chartered Bank, came here to explore business opportunities with Biman Bangladesh.
British High Commissioner to Dhaka Robert Gibson had a meeting with acting foreign secretary Khorshed Alam yesterday in which he sought the Foreign Ministry’s help in fixing an appointment with the Civil Aviation Minister for the visiting executives.
“The high commissioner told us that the sales director of Rolls Royce and the executive director of the Standard Chartered Bank want to meet the minister tomorrow [Monday] to discuss business opportunities,” said a foreign ministry official.
The ministry assured them of full support, he said.
Rolls Royce wants to do business and they would also arrange financing for the business, he said.
“The StanChart official is included in the business delegation for that purpose,” he said.
Asked why they came to Dhaka amid the travel alert, the official said they updated the notice on October 9 but did not change the security status.
The travel alert has four stages. The first stage is green, meaning it is safe to travel. The Second stage is yellow where extra caution is advised while traveling.
Bangladesh had and still has yellow alert and similar alert has been issued for some other South Asian countries, the official said.
On October 1, four British lawmakers told a group of journalists that they had wonderful time during their stay in Bangladesh for a week.
They came to Dhaka on September 25 with a delegation of 23 and spent a peaceful time without any hassle and fear.
The British authorities issued travel alert on September 28, hours after the killing of Italian national Cesare Tavella. They updated the alert on October 9 and said: “There is a high threat from terrorism.”
When asked if there was any discussions on security issues with the high commission, the official responded positively.
“Gibson told us that they felt visible security improvement but did not change their stance stated earlier,” he said.
The British envoy also requested for a barricade near his chancery at Baridhara, he added.
The first travel alert was issued by Australia on September 25 and they said they had “reliable information” about possible attacks on Australian interest.
A number of diplomats said that the “reliable information” was supplied to Australia by another country but that particular country did not issue any travel alerts itself.
After the announcement of the travel alert, within three days the Italian citizen was killed in Dhaka and a week later a Japanese national was killed in Rangpur.
After the incidents, UK, US, Canada, Japan and other countries issued travel alerts. Hong Kong has also updated its travel alert, keeping it at yellow, asking its nationals to travel with caution.
But, the Muslim countries, China, India, among others, did not issue travel alerts.
