Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Fernando Dias Feres has said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Brazil will be “bilateral” in nature as the Latin American country wants to strengthen its ties with the South Asian country.
He said Brazil is also opening a visa centre in Bangladesh to facilitate more people-to-people contact as the demand grows by the day.
The ambassador made the comment at the “DCAB Talk” organized by the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) on Thursday.
He replied to the questions related to the bilateral relations, and regional and global issues at the event with DCAB President Nurul Islam Hasib in chair. DCAB General Secretary Ashiqur Rahman Apu also spoke.
The ambassador said President Lula invited the prime minister to go to Brazil on July 28.
“This is a bilateral visit. It's just her. The idea is that she can launch with President Lula the global program against hunger and then she will go to Brasilia for all the ceremonies of a full opera visit. So that's the idea,” he said.
This will be the first bilateral visit of the prime minister to any Latin American country.
He is optimistic about the visit.
“Following the invitation letter, the foreign ministry in Dhaka has forwarded to us a proposal of an agreement to avoid double taxation to be signed during the visit”, he said, indicating that the visit is going to take place. The Bangladesh side proposed an agreement to avoid double taxation on the salaries of people occasionally involved in technical cooperation.
“So they wanted it to be signed by the prime minister during her visit to Brazil,” he said.
Investments
Brazil Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira’s first-ever first on April 7-8 generated a lot of interest between the countries.
“We were able to sign only one document during the minister's visit, which was the framework agreement on technical cooperation. It's a very important document because in our structure, this kind of agreement allows you to do everything. Using the agreement, we will be able to go into other areas or every area. We can go into agriculture, chemical industry, we can go whatever,” the ambassador said.
He said they are also exploring options for signing MoU on defense cooperation.
He said Bangladesh is becoming some sort of focal point for the Brazilian investors, because as China grows more expensive, they are looking for other places.
“So they are moving to countries around China. They are in Vietnam and Cambodia now. They are in Bangladesh. But what I'm saying, because when they come here and they see things by them, so when they go back, they tell things to people in Brazil,” he said, adding that recently a Brazilian businessman took a place and landed in Bangladesh without visa, probably because somebody told him, look, there are good opportunities in Bangladesh.”
Ethanol cooperation
“One area where I think that we could have a very interesting cooperation is ethanol”, he said, adding that it helps with pollution.
“And it can also be used to generate energy. It's much cheaper than oil. In Brazil, for instance, ethanol is the better option. So we have talks, ethanol talks with India, which is developing its own program. So we thought, why not do this with Bangladesh?”
Visa centre
There is an increasing demand for Brazilian visas, the ambassador said.
“It's getting bigger and bigger. So it's something that worries us because we think that we should have a very expedited service here in Dhaka,” he said, adding that every month they are getting 250 to 300 visa requests.
“The decision has already been made and we are going to float a tender, but they are not going to do it (tender) here in Bangladesh. They're going to do it in a third country. Because the companies who provide this kind of service are international companies,” he said.
So the decision has already been made.
